The Question of Non-Theism

In some of his many books, John Shelby Spong, the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey for 21 years, succinctly and lucidly describes key concepts of the New Testament and Christianity and explains keen insights.

A creative theologian at times, he has made startling statements including that “God is not a noun” but “a verb that invites us to live, to love and to be”!

(Probably, in that phrase, he is alluding to Process Theology which speculates that God is process, not substance). According to Process thinkers, God is very real, but God isn't a substance like most Creedal theologians believe.

However in the latter part of his leadership, Spong started denying many of the key doctrines of orthodox Christianity.
And most shocking--indeed, incomprehensible and incongruous--Spong promulgated in a few of his later books that there is No God! That Nontheism is the Truth!

Non-theism didn’t start with him, but is central to one branch of modern liberal religion, including one branch of Quakers in Britain and America. This is very strange since the Society of Friends is centered on God, has been for 380 years!

From Wikipedia:
“Non-theism among Quakers probably dates to the 1930s, when some Quakers in California branched off to form the Humanist Society of Friends (today part of the American Humanist Association), and when Henry Cadbury professed agnosticism in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School students.

The term "non-theistic" first appeared in a Quaker publication in 1952...In 1976, a Friends General Conference Gathering hosted a Workshop for Nontheistic Friends (Quakers).”

And in 2024 at Haverford College, June 30 through July 6, 2024, FGC is hosting an atheist leader, Tom Kunesh.
"His website on ‘atheisms‘ has an interesting typology of atheism (and agnosticism) and is well worth exploring..."
"Of particular interest is the page on ‘religious atheisms‘ which includes a short, very recently updated, biography of tom..." "Tom writes:
"What is a god? A god is an idealized human being, human characteristic or human creation to which is attributed with super-human powers of giving meaning to human existence. Examples of gods are Jesus...but no atheist, shaman or otherwise, knows a real god.
Knowing all the gods, the atheist must take care not to fall into the worship of any god."
"The following link takes you to a book by Kunesh, available there as an easy to navigate html file: http://atheisms.info/shaman/

How can this religious atheism be central for spiritual seekers? Especially for Quakers since their central focus is on gathering for “Worship” every 7th day?

One well-known Quaker in the U.S. stated that he doesn’t worship at Worship but, instead, pays close attention to the moment. Another, claimed that he agrees with the hard materialism of famous new atheists.

Of course, there has been a major fracturing of Quakerism in the 20th century, into many different, even contrary meetings, manily as a counter moivement against the quietist, often stringent, Quakerism of the 19th century where Quakers were removed from Yearly Meetings for many reasons including marrying a non-Quaker, being an abolitionist and part of the “Underground Railroad,” for deviation from required clothing styles, etc.

However, it is one thing to strongly oppose rigid, narrow, demanding Quakerism (even early Quakers often disagreed about major points), but it's entirely different to centrally identify with Non-Theism, to deny that the Light is real.

Such modern non-theist Friends appear to strongly agree with Spong’s Non-theism, not only that many of the doctrines of Christianity aren’t true, but that there is no God. They appear to be promoting religious atheism.

How can Spong or Henry Cadbury, an agnostic, be so knowledgeable and inspirational, yet think the Light doesn’t exist, that no transcendent Creator is real?

Such claiming is contrary to the inspirational witness of George Fox, Margaret Fell, other early Friends, and many visionaries all the way back to Jesus?

It is possible that some Quaker Non-theists aren’t denying the True God, but only denying the concept of God in Creedal Christianity. A number of them had very severe experiences in creedal denominations, and so want nothing to do with the Creeds and other doctrines.

If that is so, then they aren’t really Non-theists but deniers of the creedal God.

If that is the case, then such a Friend is completely in line with George Fox who found no succor or belief in the religious denominations of Christianity in Britain.

And I agree with such unbelievers. As a devout theist of a Friendly sort, I’ve never believed in the Creeds of orthodox Christianity and Evangelical Christianity.


As I reflect about this odd, tragic development in modern, fragmented, Quakerism, and think about my previous article on the tendency of modern Friends to lean to rightwing or leftwing ideologies, I admit I feel discouraged. But then I remember, the present isn't that different from how Britain was in the 1640's--rife with all sorts of contrary movements, beliefs, etc.

More later

In the LIGHT of the Good, the True, the Just, the Caring,

Daniel Wilcox

AWAKE to SEEK

Awake to Seek


Wake
Up and suit yourself,

Into the floundering pattern-mudded
Consciousness of this our finite skin---

Into a being 'berthed' bemused, beseemed morning
So like the proverbial hog, boar or sow of the round ring

Who as life's suitors get caught by our snouted 'knows;'
Beshrewed, besotted, bemired so we instinctively grunt,

Tempted by our sensual, careening awareness
Or our dutiful grindstoned routine,

We press our life's suit 'til evening
Or wallow down

To our suited Wake.


1st pub. in Moria Poetry



--

in the time of Darkness

to commune with the Transcendently Real
in the midst of our utter loss

in the darkened night of alone
to contemplate despite a soon demise,

to live in the Infinite's silence
deafens our wayward heart and leaves

our confused mind bereft;
the Divine answers no pleas

our anguished request left--
Selah

to hope against midnight's despair
to trust in all that is blessedly Fair,

so Beautiful, Right, Good and Just
despite our world history of horror

for naught, and absurd;
we seek

a slight glimmer
of the billion-lighted

meaning shimmering briefly
in our finite reason and creative awareness,

before the cosmos spun into place,
eternally ever always

Ultimate
Becoming.

Selah



In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

The Nature of Reality; and why I became a Friend

Most of my life, I have been of the Friend-Quaker lifestance.

In the past, in 1967, during my conscientious objector service in a Pennsylvania hospital for emotionally disturbed teens, I regularly attended BackBench young adult meeting in Philadelphia. Later in California, I (and my sweetheart) became members of California Yearly Meeting and later I was a member of Pacific Yearly Meeting.

One of the main reasons I was drawn to Friends-Quakers in 1967, beside commitment to peacemaking, is because of Expectant meeting. In those open open, transcendent meetings, I experienced the Immanence of the Light--the Good, the True, the Just, the Caring.

Besides that day-to-day Friends lifestance, what view of Reality of billions of humans is closest to the truth?
I am not a philosopher, just a rather average guy who reads a lot of books on cosmology, philosophy, and biology and advocates for human rights.

Here's a brief description of the Process view of Reality which I think is true and try to live up to:

#1 All reality is coming about by the everlasting but limited cosmic reality that is becoming. Essential reality is Process influencing matter and energy. This is the view of brilliant thinkers such as philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead.

This cosmic but limited ultimate/transcendent reality--God, the Light--who is far beyond human understanding works toward changing matter and energy and conscious, creative life such as homo sapiens into increasing patterns and forms of beauty, meaning, and purpose. This is also the view of some liberal Jews.

But where is the evidence for this?
Process thinkers explain that consciousness, reason, ethics, mathematics, natural law, creativity, aesthetics, life itself, etc. are the evidence.

We are living in a universe about 27 billion light-years across, and about 13 billion years old and, according to cosmologists, the cosmos will last more billions of years.

This view aligns well with liberal Quakerism, but most of the technical philosophical explanations are BEYOND my understanding. I'm a relatively average teacher and former mental health worker (who got born with a "why" in his throat;-).

But to function, we need to take a stand somewhere in order to live and create.

However if my speculative understanding is incorrect, what are other--many far more popular--views of Reality exist?

#2 All reality came about by cosmic chance. Seemingly the view of the French biologist Jacques Monod in Chance and Necessity, a powerful book I read a few years back, and the view of the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.

My take on this as an average person: I think this view is possible. I guess given cosmic time even the "laws" of nature, math, reason, life, ethics, consciousness could all blip into existence.

#3 All reality came about by a cosmic determinism of meaningless matter and energy which is eternal. Everything is lock step. There are no choices, not for what I supposedly ruminate on having for lunch or whether or not to commit murder or what to choose for my career.

Based on our studying this at university, and for many years since, and many times trying to imagine my "I" as an illusion who is only 'done to' by the cosmos, I think this is one of the least likely views of reality. But the view is very popular these days--sort of an atheistic version of Creedal Christianity.

#4 All reality came about somehow by a temporary, finite, imperfect, even distorted, expression of the perfect eternal Ideal Forms of Platonism.

#5 All reality came about by emergent possibilities in a quantum singularity vacuum or some unknown ultimate reality. But where did the quantum singularity vacuum come from? Here goes "turtles all the way down."
This view seems to posit an eternal physical reality with no "super" reality 'transcending' it.
Humankind is a "fluke," an "accident," a "lucky" break.

#6 All reality came about by an impersonal ultimate reality of cosmic beauty. Scientists such as Albert Einstein stated this was his view, that he thought the impersonal god of Spinoza was true. But this seems similar to a combination of #3 and #4.

The emergent-possibility cosmos isn't meaningless and purposeless, but filled with meaning.
Interesting, but I doubt it.

#7 All reality came about as just one of an infinite number of universes of an infinite multi-verse, the view of some modern cosmologists. What is the ultimate of the multi-verse is unknown or maybe the multiverse itself is ultimate.

Intriguing, but seems too speculative for me. However, I'm not as skeptical as Martin Gardner, one of the co-founders of the modern skeptical movement who wrote a scathing dismissal of this view.

#8 All reality came about by the impersonal Brahma God of Hinduism and some modern New Age leaders such as Ken Wilber with his Integral Theory, and Deepak Chopra, etc.

The impersonal Ultimate, Brahma is conducting a cosmic dance in which it forgets its self and dreams into billions of separated forms including in one minor edge of the universes, thinking humans.

But all is illusion. And all events both good and evil are produced by Brahman. That is why Ken Wilber and other such leaders claim that Brahman caused 9//11, causes all murders, all rapes, etc.

Given that I am a human rights worker from way back, for about 55 years, obviously this isn't my cup of philosophical tea. Also, I still vividly remember as a Gandhi devotee being shocked when a Hindu priest in L.A. tried to persuade me to go to Vietnam to kill (when I was drafted), saying insects are killed all the time in reality.:-(

#9 All reality came about by unknowable factors. Everything beyond and before the Big Bang is such a complete unfathomable mystery that it will probably not ever be solved by finite humans at least not for a very long time.

Allegedly the view of the Mysterians such as the skeptic Martin Gardner, Roger Penrose, etc.

#10 All reality continually comes about by infinite impersonal reality which never had a beginning. No creator god exists. Some forms of Buddhism are atheistic and nihilistic, though other forms are theistic.

--

What do you think?


In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

Side Bio Note: My career for many years was as World and American literature and writing teacher after I dropped out of seminary and quit being a youth minister. However, I've also worked driving a caterpillar on a kibbutz farm in Palestine-Israel, driven a chrome truck, and been an assistant manager of a backpacking-camping store.

One Transcendent Experience that Transforms

TRANSCENDENCE

I can’t carry a basic tune
Anymore than a bat can sing wonder
Or envision quantum events,

But once I welled up bursting forth
Beyond all melodious barriers
Of sensuous fountaining,

Songing the voice of all singing.
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest,
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate

Usually, I vocalize low and hesitant
With insecure, stressed effort
But on that humid evened night

In the crowded chapel meeting hall
In the midst of a thousand voiced joyfulness,
I not only caroled the Keys but was mused,

Songing the voice of all singing,
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate

We human instruments, fluting beauty
One glorious open canticled sound
With so much climactic passion;

Me, a human oboe in a great orchestra of tone
Being Bached and Beethovened,
To the alleluiaed heights,

Songing the voice of all singing,
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate.

Lava-hot harmonied, a chorale of joy-exultant
Wonder, the Transcendent's fountain bursting forth,
Geysering up in ecstatic adulation,

Welling skyward to the Ineffable One
Beyond all measuring, awed Infinite
Incomprehensible Becoming.

Songing the voice of all singing,
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate.

Dan Wilcox

First published in The Clockwise Cat in different form;
also in poetry collections--Psalms, Yawps, and Howls
and selah river

"So many gods, so many creeds..."

Why I Am a Process-theist, Not an Atheist or Creedal Christian

#1 The existence of Life, that marvelous creative structure of DNA.

I’m not given to anthropomorphizing nature and strongly dislike writing that does that. HOWEVER, despite the fact that non-sentient matter doesn’t have any will or awareness, there does appear to be some sort incredible drive within the natural process of Life itself.

One of Life’s astounding,staggering facts is that while once--more than 2 billion years ago--there was only inert matter and energy, at some point, somehow LIFE came into existence (biogenesis), Life from non-life.

No doubt this extraordinary, stunning change—nonlife to LIFE--came about via the structural creativity and intelligence inherent in reality of which so many brilliant scientists speak of; they sometimes use the word, emergent, to describe this amazing development. And, of course, the 51% of scientists in the United States who aren’t atheists, attribute this spectacular transformation to ultimate reality.

BUT even all of that—LIFE from non-life--isn’t the most staggering fact:
it’s that despite over-whelming odds,
despite the extinction of over 99% of all life forms in deep time;
despite huge natural disasters including large meteors hitting the Earth,
despite the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc.
LIFE on planet earth, a couple billion years later
continues to develop,
to expand,
to evolve,
to strongly continue to exist.

Despite the popularity of apocalyptic destruction media and novels, it appears that life will continue to exist and thrive in this universe for at least one more billion years!

After that according to cosmologists, our sun will get hotter and hotter, and boil away Earth’s oceans. Probably the end of life.
But until then...

Life is very stubborn:-)

I see this especially almost daily when my wife and I take hikes and our daily walks. Various plants grow out of places that wouldn’t seem possible. Their stems manage to squeak through narrow cracks in sidewalks, blacktop, masonry, rock faces. Tree roots break thick concrete driveways, uplift heavy slabs.

Heck, there is a series of long twining weeds that have squeezed through one door jam in our garage. They trail up the vertical side of the door and over onto the wall. I absolutely know that they have no sentience, that plants have no awareness, no will, no drive,
YET somehow Life ‘urges’ to exist
and overcomes very difficult circumstances.

Some of plants are so life-driven that they drive me and my wife crazy;-)

We have over-and-over, for the umpteen time, killed all unwanted life-plant forms in our front rock and rose garden;
we’ve laid down thick layers of plastic;
repeatedly I've used weed killer;
my wife constantly pulls weeds, etc.

YET there they are again,
driven up through poison,
up through heavy plastic, up past my wife’s persistent fingers,
more ‘determined’ to live than most anything.

So even small ‘persistent’ survival-persistent weeds astound me.

At 71 years of age, I have almost no energy compared to those thick weeds, skinny small vines, ugly intruders:-).

Here's bit of scientific data on DNA:

“The structure of DNA, an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid, illustrates a basic principle common to all biomolecules: the intimate relation between structure and function. The remarkable properties of this chemical substance allow it to function as a very efficient and robust vehicle for storing information.”

“A major role for many sequences of DNA is to encode the sequences of proteins, the workhorses within cells, participating in essentially all processes. Some proteins are key structural components, whereas others are specific catalysts (termed enzymes) that promote chemical reactions. Like DNA and RNA, proteins are linear polymers. However, proteins are more complicated in that they are formed from a selection of 20 building blocks, called amino acids, rather than 4.”

“The functional properties of proteins, like those of other biomolecules, are determined by their three-dimensional structures. Proteins possess an extremely important property: a protein spontaneously folds into a welldefined and elaborate three-dimensional structure that is dictated entirely by the sequence of amino acids along its chain (Figure 1.6). The self-folding nature of proteins constitutes the transition from the one-dimensional world of sequence information to the three-dimensional world of biological function. This marvelous ability of proteins to self assemble into complex structures is responsible for their dominant role in biochemistry."

"Folding of a Protein. The three-dimensional structure of a protein, a linear polymer of amino acids, is dictated by its amino acid sequence.
How is the sequence of bases along DNA translated into a sequence of amino acids along a protein chain? We will consider the details of this process in later chapters, but the important finding is that three bases along a DNA chain encode a single amino acid. The specific correspondence between a set of three bases and 1 of the 20 amino acids is called the genetic code. Like the use of DNA as the genetic material, the genetic code is essentially universal; the same sequences of three bases encode the same amino acids in all life forms from simple microorganisms to complex, multicellular organisms such as human beings.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22415/
Copyright © 2002, W. H. Freeman and Company.

There “...is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over."
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton, New York, p. 115, 1986

#2 The amazing and intellectually beautiful regularities of the Cosmos (often called the Laws of Physics or Cosmology); Time-Space’s wonder; quantum physics;

The physicist Steven Wineburg wrote that for him the cosmos seems “pointless.”
“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”
Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature (1993), ISBN 0-09-922391-0

But some other professional scientists, (and me, an average literature and writing teacher who has an amateur fascination with studying science on my own) have come to the extreme opposite conclusion:

The more we discover and learn about the cosmos, the more it seems meaningful and pointfull.

This whole area of astrophysics, cosmology, and astronomy often brings in the G-word, for good or ill, often by anti-religious thinkers who castigate all theists as fundamentalists.

The G-word is problematic because it is so ambiguous, so contradictory, so empty-bucket when it comes to its denotative meaning.

Give a hear to the thoughts of the famous astronomer Carl Sagan:

"The word “god” is used to cover a vast multitude of mutually exclusive ideas. And the distinctions are, I believe in some cases, intentionally fuzzed so that no one will be offended that people are not talking about their god.

"But let me give a sense of two poles of the definition of God. One is the view of, say, Spinoza or Einstein, which is more or less God as the sum total of the laws of physics. Now, it would be foolish to deny that there are laws of physics. If that’s what we mean by God, then surely God exists. All we have to do is watch the apples drop."

"Newtonian gravitation works throughout the entire universe. We could have imagined a universe in which the laws of nature were restricted to only a small portion of space or time. That does not seem to be the case....So that is itself a deep and extraordinary fact: that the laws of nature exist and that they are the same everywhere. So if that is what you mean by God, then I would say that we already have excellent evidence that God exists."

"But now take the opposite pole: the concept of God as an outsize male with a long white beard, sitting in a throne in the sky and tallying the fall of every sparrow. Now, for that kind of god I maintain there is no evidence. And while I’m open to suggestions of evidence for that kind of god, I personally am dubious that there will be powerful evidence for such a god not only in the near future but even in the distant future. And the two examples I’ve given you are hardly the full range of ideas that people mean when they use the word “god.”
https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/20/carl-sagan-varieties-of-scientific-experience/
--

I do strongly agree with Sagan that the "concept of God as an outsize male" isn't real, that there is no evidence for such an anthropomorphic god. Indeed, as a small child, I NEVER thought that God was a superhuman man up in the sky, in heaven. On the contrary, I looked at life, existence, and the night sky with awed wonder. My image of God was like of oxygen or some other gas!:-)

God was invisible, everywhere, and necessary for life to exist.

And my own view of the nature of Reality—often called ‘God’ even by famous scientists—is somewhat related to Sagan’s definition: “the sum total” of natural laws.

Only, I think, that Life, reason, ethics, etc. exist inherent within the nature of Reality.

And from Astrophysicist and theoretical cosmologist Janna Levin:

“If I were to ever lean towards spiritual thinking or religious thinking, it would be in that way. It would be, why is it that there is this abstract mathematics that guides the universe? The universe is remarkable because we can understand it. That’s what’s remarkable. All the other things are remarkable, too. It’s really, really astounding that these little creatures on this little planet that seem totally insignificant in the middle of nowhere can look back over the fourteen-billion-year history of the universe and understand so much and in such a short time."

"So that is where I would get a sense, again, of meaning and of purpose and of beauty and of being integrated with the universe so that it doesn’t feel hopeless and meaningless. Now, I don’t personally invoke a God to do that, but I can’t say that mathematics would disprove the existence of God either. It’s just one of those things where over and over again, you come to that point where some people will make that leap and say, “I believe that God initiated this and then stepped away, and the rest was this beautiful mathematical unfolding.” And others will say, “Well, as far back as it goes, there seem to be these mathematical structures. And I don’t feel the need to conjure up any other entity.” And I fall into that camp, and without feeling despair or dissatisfaction.”

--
Here, Levin seems to be disbelieving in the same god that Sagan and many of us non-scientists emphasize there is no evidence for. This is the god of popular superstition and creedal religion.

Many scientists, on the other hand, use the term, god, to refer to ultimate or essential reality, as Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary's first definition: "1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality:"

For example Albert Einstein: “My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit [‘spirit’ meaning the nature of, not meant in the organized religion sense] that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality."

#3 Related to those staggering realities, is the remarkable fact that in this vast, seemingly infinite expanding Time-Space reality, there is on a minor planet in a middling galaxy a finite primate (us), who in historic time only recently became consciously aware, rational, with mental capabilities able to discover these astronomical, cosmological, astrophysical complex theories and facts!

It is humbling true that it appears we human primates have only begun to tap into the whole of Reality; and there may even be a multiverse, beyond the billions of galaxies within our own universe. Like Einstein emphasized we as a species are like a small child who has discovered a vast library far beyond his/her little capabilities. There are billions, trillions of volumes.

Yet, it is so extraordinary that we as a species, with our basic brain, can understand even the barest minimum of Existence.
Various cosmologists, astrophysicists, astronomers, and mathematicians are enthralled by the wonder of it all.

#4 Math; how some mathematicians think that the ultimate nature of Reality is actually mathematical!

I’m a math-light-weight;-) I did make it through algebra, geometry, college math, did fairly well, (mostly B’s) BUT realized that I wasn’t given the brainpower to do heavy lifting when it comes to higher math, so had to give up my childhood dream of becoming a space engineer. However, I still have deep appreciation of math’s amazing complexity in relationship to the cosmos.

Consider the view of math from the perspective of Astrophysicist and theoretical cosmologist Janna Levin:

“I would absolutely say I am also besotted with mathematics. I don’t worry about what’s real and not real in the way that maybe Gödel did. I think what Turing did, which was so beautiful, was to have a very practical approach. He believed that life was, in a way, simple. You could relate to mathematics in a concrete and practical way. It wasn’t about surreal, abstract theories. And that’s why Turing is the one who invents the computer, because he thinks so practically. He can imagine a machine that adds and subtracts, a machine that performs the mathematical operations that the mind performs."

"The modern computers that we have now are these very practical machines that are built on those ideas. So I would say that like Turing, I am absolutely struck with the power of mathematics, and that’s why I’m a theoretical physicist...I love that we can all share the mathematical answers. It’s not about me trying to convince you of what I believe or of my perspective or of my assumptions."

"We can all agree that one plus one is two, and we can all make calculations that come out to be the same, whether you’re from India or Pakistan or Oklahoma, we all have that in common. There’s something about that that’s deeply moving to me and that makes mathematics pure and special. And yet I’m able to have a more practical attitude about it, which is that, well, we can build machines this way. There is a physical reality that we can relate to using mathematics.”

"If I were to ever lean towards spiritual thinking or religious thinking, it would be in that way. It would be, why is it that there is this abstract mathematics that guides the universe? The universe is remarkable because we can understand it. That’s what’s remarkable. All the other things are remarkable, too. It’s really, really astounding that these little creatures on this little planet that seem totally insignificant in the middle of nowhere can look back over the fourteen-billion-year history of the universe and understand so much and in such a short time."

"So that is where I would get a sense, again, of meaning and of purpose and of beauty and of being integrated with the universe so that it doesn’t feel hopeless and meaningless. Now, I don’t personally invoke a God to do that, but I can’t say that mathematics would disprove the existence of God either. It’s just one of those things where over and over again, you come to that point where some people will make that leap and say, “I believe that God initiated this and then stepped away, and the rest was this beautiful mathematical unfolding.” And others will say, “Well, as far back as it goes, there seem to be these mathematical structures. And I don’t feel the need to conjure up any other entity.” And I fall into that camp, and without feeling despair or dissatisfaction."
Astrophysicist and theoretical cosmologist Janna Levin
Einstein's God, Interviews with Scientists by Krista Tippett

#5 Reason:

Think of the stunning results that humans’ rational abilities have achieved, especially when brilliant humans hypothesize in a number of different scientific, historical, and aesthetic fields.

#6 Ethics:

Moral realism!
In contrast, most Atheists and Creedal Christians aren’t moral realists.

It’s baffling that so many Atheists and Creedal Christians claim that morals and ethics, and human rights are subjective.

And many famous Atheist leaders take it one gigantic step further, claiming that human creative choice, moral responsibility, equality, liberty, justice, human rights, etc. are all “myths,” delusions!

And Creedal Christians claim that all humans, since we were foreordained from before the beginning of Time-Space, by their god to be sinful at conception/birth, we are incapable of any choice. Furthermore, God often changes what is moral or immoral. Whatever the Christian god decides—that becomes moral even if it is horrific such as genocide, the slaughter of children, rape, slavery, and so forth.

#7 Aesthetics

#8

#9

#10
--

In SUMMARY:
All reality is coming about by the everlasting but limited cosmic reality that is “becoming.” This is the view of thinkers such as philosopher and mathematician Alfred Lord Whitehead, philosopher Charles Hartshorne, etc.

This cosmic but limited ‘god-ultimate reality’--who is far beyond human understanding--works toward changing matter and energy and conscious life (such as homo sapiens) into increasing patterns and forms of beauty, meaning, and purpose.

This is also the view of some Reform Jews and extremely liberal non-creedal Christians and Muslims.

But where is the evidence for this?

Process thinkers explain that consciousness, reason, ethics, mathematics, natural law, creativity, aesthetics, life itself, etc. are the evidence.
This view is appealing, (though most of the technical philosophical explanations are beyond my understanding).
OR
All reality came about somehow by a temporary, finite, imperfect, even distorted, expression of the perfect eternal Ideal Forms of Platonism.
I already explained that I've been influenced by Platonism though I strongly reject certain portions and claims of the philosophical worldview of Plato.

To be continued--


In the Light of Reality,

Daniel Wilcox

LIVE BRANCH REACH

Live Branch Reach


Writhing twists of growing
Corded effort stretched
Out westward

From the knotted
Leaning
Shadow dark trunk,
Bright sunlight
On the contorted
Slow-year braided flow,

Tribulating
Over
Dry boulders,
Stone-strewn
On the sand-creeked streambed;

Stretched wooden waves
Driftwood wrenched,
Intertwined effort
Convoluting,
Live branch reach

Tributaries
Flowing west with
New green growth
Behind and above
The under shadows
On the barred river sand,
Living driftwood river

--Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Western Friend Magazine,
also in Willows Wept Review
and selah river poetry collection

Part #2: Toward a Skeptical Worldview of Hope—God as Becoming

Being and/or Becoming, that is the question…
(to misquote the Bard).

What is the term “God” at a basic level but the Good with an additional exclaimed, “OH!”

Who is/was/will-be/does/becomes?

Before launching into the second part of this series on God, which will deal with philosophers’ reasoning about God such as that of Professor Charles Hartshorne’s analytical speculation on the nature of Ultimate Reality, here's a few introductory notes.
(IF you don’t want to be bored with the important introduction, skip DOWN to SECTION #2: CHARLES HARTSHORNE.)

INTRODUCTION

I suppose it goes without saying (but I will type it;-) that we finite educated primates have taken on a seemingly impossible task, sort of like one human swallowing the wide ocean whole--hook, line, and sinker;-)

We who only have a lifespan of about 70-80 years in developed countries show observation, ingenuity, creativity, and complicated thinking. But usually it also includes much hubris.

Think of various religious spokespersons now who claim the founders of their religion knew in detail what God was doing before the Big Bang, yet they excuse their founding leaders for horrific ethics-- burning people at the stake, enslaving millions, and so forth--claiming that the thinkers were only believing, behaving and doing like most other humans in their time period! The prime example, of course, is the intellectual Reformed religion and its founders John Calvin, John Knox, Martin Luther, and Hudrych Zwingli.

Who are we to think that we can understand and explain Reality, let alone Ultimate Reality? Heck, the existence of Homo sapiens has only occurred in the last second of the finite existence of one minuscule planet in a very small solar system on the edge of one of billions of galaxies. Let’s not even speculate on the multi-verse.

“Humans are good at a lot of things, but putting time in perspective is not one of them. It’s not our fault—the spans of time in human history, and even more so in natural history, are so vast compared to the span of our life and recent history that it’s almost impossible to get a handle on it. If the Earth formed at midnight and the present moment is the next midnight, 24 hours later, modern humans have been around since 11:59:59pm—1 second. And if human history itself spans 24 hours from one midnight to the next, 14 minutes represents the time since Christ.”
Tim Urban
TIME By Wait But Why
http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Time-G-e1419172691756.png

Human insight and understanding are on a long trajectory from basic self and natural awareness of early humans to the present when scientists understand enough of astronomy, complex math, an innovative technology to send a probe all the way to the dwarf planet Pluto, a journey which took almost 10 years.

“The New Horizons mission has taken what we thought we knew about Pluto and turned it upside down,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It's why we explore -- to satisfy our innate curiosity and answer deeper questions about how we got here and what lies beyond the next horizon."
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/four-months-after-pluto-flyby-nasa-s-new-horizons-yields-wealth-of-discovery

FAR BEYOND THAT—is the comprehending and understanding of the ultimate nature of existence.
What happens in the essence of reality?
What took place before the Big Bang of the universe?
What will happen after humans become extinct?
After our cosmos ceases to exist?

Or for that matter who can explain exhaustively the nature of the Cosmos right now? Cosmologists are working on the seemingly infinite task. We don’t yet understand dark matter or dark energy and so much else.

But humans are in a process of becoming. As mentioned before, think how far Homo sapiens have come since they first discovered fire, math, abstract thought, and reasoned speculation.

Since we humans are a self-aware, conscious, rational, ethical species, even though we understand so little, we need to think about meaning and purpose in order not to lapse back into only instinctive responses in our brief journey of living. Every day, every moment we make choices--

Let us THINK!

A skeptic...is a person who questions everything, including her own conclusions, all the time. She craves knowledge and understanding, so she loves bumping into people and ideas that challenge her assumptions. A skeptic views disagreements as opportunities to refine her knowledge and understand more today than she did last night.
Paul Mahan
https://medium.com/@ungewissen/religious-people-are-wrong-about-skeptics-1f502ebffe83

--
“speculation (n.)
late 14c., "intelligent contemplation, consideration; act of looking," from Old French speculacion "close observation, rapt attention," and directly from Late Latin speculationem (nominative speculatio) "contemplation, observation," noun of action from Latin speculatus, past participle of speculari "observe," from specere "to look at, view" (see scope (n.1)).
Online Etymology Dictionary

skeptic: related to skeptesthai "to reflect, look, view"
Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found. [Miguel de Unamuno, "Essays and Soliloquies," 1924]
“The extended sense of "one with a doubting attitude" first recorded 1610s.”

“Meaning "pursuit of the truth by means of thinking" is from mid-15c. Disparaging sense of "mere conjecture" is recorded from 1570s.”
OED
--

SECTION 2: CHARLES HARTSHORNE

First, the essential nut of God without even the shell:

Second, Charles Hartshorne answers Epicurus' striking questions with his own complex philosophy of God reduced to a poster:

And that's only the beginning:-)

TO BE CONTINUED--




In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Awake to Seek

Wake

Up and suit yourself,

Into the floundering pattern-mudded

Consciousness of this our finite skin---

Into a being 'berthed' bemused, beseemed morning

So like the proverbial hog, the typical sow of the round ring

Who as life's suitors are led about by their snouted 'knows;'

Beshrewed, besotted, bemired so we instinctively grunt,

Following our sensual, careening awareness

Or our dutiful grindstoned routine,

We press our life's suit 'til evening

Or wallow down

To our suited

Wake.



by Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in Moria Poetry

--


in the time of Darkness

to commune with the Ultimately Real
in the midst of our utter loss
in the darkened night of alone
to contemplate despite a soon demise,
to live in the Infinite's silence
deafens our wayward heart and leaves
our confused mind bereft;
the Divine answers no pleas
our anguished request left--

Selah

to hope against midnight's despair
to trust in all that is blessedly Fair,
so Beautiful, Right, Good and Just
despite our world history of horror
for naught, and absurd;
we seek
a slight glimmer
of the billion-lighted
meaning shimmering briefly
in our finite reason and creative awareness,
before the cosmos spun into place,
eternally ever always
Ultimate
Becoming.

Selah

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Storied Mask

The Storied Mask


The vast kaleidoscoped cosmos
On black velvet background
Galactic star swirls,
One great masked Chagall

We turn our stained-glass faces…

Above us in infinite light years,
Visioning vivid rose and royal blue,
So covered the costumed earth,
Weeping colors of bowed rain,

We turn our stained-glass faces…

In this troubled world's lastness,
From the very beforeness,
Out from the mummering
Great cosmic Blast,

We turn our stained-glass faces…

A hooded violet trope
That hurtled us across time
Into the endless question
Before the troubled asking;

We turn our stained-glass faces…

Our distraught disguises
Cascading down,
Away from the pierced harshness
Of wintered survival rage
To stare at the flaming sun,

We turn our stained-glass faces…

Gleaming through, unmerry
Makers, not mindfully blind
But behind metaphor's
Vivid translucent veil,

We turn our stained-glass faces…

Seeing the One True Face,
Stained with the sorrow
Of ever-becoming visually real,
Ruby, emerald, and sapphire,

Yes, we turn our stained-glass faces

To one finally white endless strobe,
Encompassing all despaired weeping
In the brightness of transcendent becoming,
Unlimited strophe of the cosmic Masque
Of all Dancing.

by Daniel Wilcox


First published in different form in Mad Swirl;
later in the poetry collection, selah river

Part 3: Be Calm, Be Called, Be Come

So, (continuing on from the two previous posts),
how does all this abstract philosophical speculation grip the dangerous road here and now at this moment and in succeeding moments, even when the worst tests of life ravage our lives?

We can have hope that God becomes "for us"--ALL of us, even in the worst of worst.
God isn't an almighty sovereign who controls/ordains everything including evil. God doesn't view us as his things 'to do with as he pleases,' as many modern Christian leaders claim.

God isn't primarily found in doctrine or private devotions, not even mainly in corporate worship. God doesn't need our praise and adulation. The latter was always for us, never for himself. As 1 John says, God is love. When does love ever focus on itself?! When does love ever want to be the center of the party?

The true glory of God is that he has become, for everyone and everything, much less than he is--emptying himself because he "so loved the world." (John 3:16)

As the New Testament so repeatedly emphasizes, like Jesus did in one of his last actions for his followers, God becomes...
--a servant to us!
--through Jesus, suffers and dies for every human who has lived and who will ever live, and eventually all of creation!
--our future, eventually culminating in a universal communion between Creator and created.
--the creative, healing edge in each moment of our lives.
--the ultimate hope in every despair.

As a few visionary spiritual leaders have emphasized, God and all related true spirituality isn't primarily a memory of the past, not tradition, not creeds which were created by warring Christians who had forgotten Jesus' primary words of instruction--to love everyone, even their political and religious enemies.

God's will for us is to live out of our spiritual imagination, not past events or our present circumstances, whether they be good or bad.

God becomes in loving, peacemaking, healing, truth-sharing, communing, giving...

So...

Step #1 Be Calm.

Yeah right...(both in the ironic sense and, yes, in the denotative sense)
yeah right in the midst of all your despair, testings, temptations, heartache, worry, tragedy, loss, good times, joy...

In the midst of all that can't seem to be overcome, or even the good that is keeping you focused narrowly within your kin and nation,
break out,
by becoming in this present moment now focused on God--the Truth.

When this meditation first came to me at the 'Church of the Swimming Pool,' I thought I would share one of the climatic results of once when I 'be calmed.' But now as I write this, it seems best to leave the past, even the wondrous past...
and focus,
on the future--

As Scripture says, Jesus stands outside every door and knocks. Will you answer,or are you too lost in your loss, your suffering, your failings, your despair? If you are too lost--so am I on some days when despair drowns hope--
answer anyway!

Like the rock group Third Day sings, "Cry out to Jesus..."

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Thinking About "i/THOU" This Morning

PREFACE:
(If you are in a hurry,
skip this.)

Do you find your eyes rolling over into the back of your head when you read the doctrinaire pronouncements of religious people? I admit I do, yes, have done a lot of “eyes to the back” in my time.

Many humans, not only atheists, repeatedly ask, “But how do these spokespersons and writers possibly know all this dogma about GOD, about Ultimate Reality? Aren’t they putting a broken verbal cart before infinite horsepower?"

And why do so many of these ‘know-it-all theologians disagree and contradict one another? There are over 200 different Baptist denominations alone.

Besides, becoming inspired by and thinking through and figuring out, and then applying Christ-like ethics to everyday situations and controversies--THAT is what the essence of humanistic Life is primarily concerned with, not abstractions and philosophical speculation.

So it’s with trepidation, and a strong sense of ‘what use is this’ that I begin to theologize. How could ‘i’ possibly have any sense of GOD’s ultimate nature when ‘i’ can’t even fix my broken HP printer?:-)

CUTTING TO THE CHASE—Thinking about “i/THOU”:

Variation of Jewish philosopher’s Martin Buber’s
famous phrase for our relationship with God.

God is transcendental becoming as well as being.
God creates everlastingly behind all temporal causing.

“I will become what I will become” is one translation
of the one Hebrew word for God, YHWH.

Concerning this process philosophical view of existence:
"In traditional or classical theism, God was seen
as the supreme, unchanging being, but in Hartshorne’s
process-based or neoclassical conception, God is seen
as supreme becoming in which there is a factor
of supreme being."

"That is, we humans become for a while,
whereas God always becomes,"
Hartshorne maintains.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

God always becomes, is always “ought,” continually journeys everlastingly. We don’t know any facts of God’s becoming outside of our own finite existence.

We do trust that the inmost essence of God’s becoming is love. God is love according to 1 John, John 3:16, and I Corinthians 13, etc.

So God, billions of human years ago, via the “Big Bang,” began to create Existence as separate from God’s self.
Within God's creative becoming was the desire for I-Thou. Eventually, via the process of evolution, sentient creatures came into existence, and finally conscious, transcendent, rational primates.*

To quote Martin Luther King Jr.:"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Martin Luther King

Yes, God--ultimate or transcendent reality, the Good--becomes in everlasting ‘oughtness.’ God is much more than 'is.' Indeed, the Good is often against what is.

Creativity even in us humans on our very finite level isn’t an 'is,' but rather a continuing action, a becoming, a future potential.


TO BE CONTINUED


AFTERWARD:

(If you want the reasoning for the why of my blog post…)
*If God/Ultimate or Process Reality/the Good desired a creative i/thou relationship,
why did UR take about 14 billion years in this tiny section of the universe
to bring that about?

I have no idea. Remember, I don’t normally write speculative theology
or cosmology or metaphysics. So what am I doing here then typing on?

Also, we don't know whether or not there are other conscious, rational beings
in other solar systems. Carl Sagan and some other scientists think that
alien life must be abundant given the cosmic size of the universe, but
other scientists disagree. I don't know.

It's Monergists and other determinists (Augustinians, Muslims, New Age,
Atheists, etc.) who are thoroughly poisoning the human well with their fated views.

Their worldview which denies all human choice and all creativity, which makes
the universe a hard block of cosmic amber with us stuck in one tiny corner like
microscopic termites is nihilistic.

I experienced a strong need/desire/leading to give a different perspective.
That's all.
Amen;-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Nature of Reality: Step #1

What is the true nature of Reality? Notice the capital R. I'm not talking about the finite observable present day-to-day temporal world of basic facts which includes humans as one form of primate undergoing evolutionary change.

Rather, I am speaking of the ultimate category of reality of which philosophers, physicists, and cosmologists refer to, and what religious people and mystics say they experience--the ultimate objective source of Being and Becoming.

Where does "all this" come from and eventually go to?

After this cosmos in so many trillions and trillions of years either stretches out space to infinity or implodes back to a singularity, what will still BE?

Why are we here? Are there eternal truths?

Of course some philosophers and scientists declare there is nothing "out" there beyond matter and energy. The cosmos-- maybe universes beyond universes--has no Meaning or Purpose, only IS for no reason.

Scientists such as Richard Dawkins claim that even to think there might be some Meaning behind it all is to be deluded in the worst sort of way. He wrote The God Delusion to try and demonstrate this central non-theistic thesis.

And Stephen J. Gould the famous Darwinian biologist, in a magazine interview, said humankind itself is only a "fluke" of evolution that probably wouldn't show up again if evolution were re-run another time.

Other famous scientists in this chorus of non-meaning include Coyne, Harris, Cashmore, Hutchens, Monad, Dennett, and Provine.

Dawkins' most famous statement against religion and the transcendent is probably his declaration in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life:

"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so."

"If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice."

"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
--

So there is the first option as to the true nature of Reality: Matter, Energy, and Chance or Cosmic Determinism. The natural, indifferent Cosmos itself is all there is.

We humans are an accidental species or "meat puppets" who construct our own illusions.

Then die. Eventually we as a species will go extinct.

In strong contrast, Enlightenment figures argued that consciousness, reason, human rights, justice, equality, and so forth show evidence of the essential nature of existence--the Deity.

And Friends have trusted for 300 hundred years that Ultimate Reality is Loving Relationship, Equality, Purpose--
that at the very center and heart of Reality are eternal truths, everlasting ideals, absolute love.

Some other faiths agree with the Society of Friends. Transcendent Love is the Center of the Cosmos.

Martin Buber, the Jewish mystic wrote a book on God, titled, I-Thou, which speaks of a love relationship between God and each human.

The Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., (despite his own moral failings), strongly held to Ultimate Reality being loving and good and true and just.

In his speech "Rediscovering Lost Values," King said, "The first principle of value is that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations."

"In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws..."

"I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. (Yes) Eternally so, absolutely so."

"It's wrong to hate. (Yes. That's right) It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. It's wrong in America. It's wrong in Germany..."

"It was wrong in 200 B.C. and it's wrong in 1954 A.D...It's wrong in every age and it's wrong in every nation."

"Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute."
--

No doubt early Friends would have ascribed non-theism to the "ocean of darkness" that threatens humankind. So how is it then that some Friends in the last 40 years have come out stating there is no God to worship, no Ultimate Reality to "quake before"?

They say God is a fiction, a word which does not represent anything real.

It is uncertain why such Friends deny God's existence. We are all doubters to one degree or another, but when humans, especially Friends, claim for certain that there is no God, it is puzzling and distressing.

After all both names--"Friend" and "Quaker"--are in reference to God. And the vital central focus of a Quaker meeting is worship of the Truth, the Light, the Divine.

If there is no One--no Center--to worship, then it would appear that such individuals are consciously choosing to pretend, what other non-theists such as Dawkins term "delusion."

Before I continue with an introduction to the Friends view of worship, let me emphasize that ALL humans are invited to come to commune in worship, even those who don't think there is any Ultimate Reality to live in and commune with. Hopefully, they will encounter the Truth, the Light.

After all, remember what Stephen King that famous Quaker horror writer;-) wrote in his novel, The Stand. In response to an atheist's statement that he doesn't believe in God, the heroic leader in the novel laughs and says, "But that don't matter. He believes in you."

To be continued


In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox