Transcendence--Part 2

‘Liberal’ Christians admit Jesus and the NT authors were mistaken, but in so doing they are trying to pole vault up a steep incline while sliding down the slippery back slope of increasing doubt and skepticism. If the NT isn’t historically accurate about such a key doctrine as the return of Christ, many ask, how could one rely on Scripture's accounts of Jesus rising from the grave, ascending into heaven, etc.

How can the Christian religion be true and accurate about anything else?

After all, the bar of requirements for historical writing has been set very high in the modern age. All things, people think, need to be factually accurate, inerrant to be of real value. So religion, the spiritual, and the transcendent all need to be judged with the measuring tools of science.

A compass of accuracy needs to discern the geometric lines of theology and faith, to eliminate and banish any heresy that deviates from the factual.

What a very high raising of the TRUTH bar for us thinking humans to catapult over!

The nature of truth is a difficult subject bar none (to throw in a word play to lighten this heavy post;-)

The difficulty of hope versus illusion-delusion (false hope) and reason versus despair (false reason) is a very high bar indeed. Can any hope of the transcendent be found at all?

Millions of humans think not. So they quit 'pole-vaulting' and settle down on the ground of Materialism/Atheism/even Nihilism and Subjectivism/Relativism. Such thinkers include Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Coyne, Yuval Noah Harari, Sean Carroll, Brian Green, etc.).

In striking contrast, many other thinkers and scientists created the ENLIGHTENMENT/Deism/generic theism, etc. Their new outlook based in reason and the scientific method--Not revelation--managed to clear the bar of required evidence.

All of them strongly hold to modern evidence--evolutionary biological, geological, astronomical, rational--but don't think such evidence proves that Reality is meaningless, subjective, etc. Instead, they think that Reality is ultimately transcendent, moral realism is true, all humans have inherent worth, etc. They state they base their hope in reason and cosmic regularities, Life itself, etc.

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

Daniel Wilcox




SIDE NOTE:
on more historic difficulties for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam-- 'revealed religions' of doctrinal claims Another difficult raising of the bar of religious hope came 1,500 years after Jesus, in the time of Galileo and Copernicus.

The Creedal Church claimed supreme understanding and control in all matters. Yet a minority of scientists contradicted the teachings of the Church and, allegedly, the Bible. They claimed to have proved that the sun doesn’t round the earth each day; indeed, the earth is not the center, not the focal point of all creation as Genesis claims.

Soon science increased its evidential findings--our sun is actually only a very minor star, Not the Center of Reality.

Contrary to the Scriptures’ statement, “God made the stars also,” in actuality, those stars are cosmically vast than our puny solar system. We are on an edge of a galaxy, which is one of millions of other galaxies!

So much for the literal understanding of the Jewish Bible, the New Testament, the Quran, and common sense!

Scratch!

Of course, multi-millions choose to twist the plain text in the sacred scriptures. They argue Genesis describes the creation of the sun on the fourth day from the perspective of God’s Spirit at the level of the surface of the planet looking up!

So God looking up from planet earth's surface does make it seem like the sun comes after the earth rather than before. What has happened? A dense, heavy cloud of vapor had hidden the sun during the first 3 days. The sun finally appeared above the earth on the 4th day.

There is a very bad case of Not only 'scratching' but of cheating!

But the verse in Genesis doesn’t speak about the sun appearing from behind fog on the fourth day; on the contrary, it says: “And God said, 'Let there be light in the vault of the heavens to light up the earth.' And so it was. And God made the two great lights…” (Genesis 1:14-16)

Other religionist wrote of a dualistic existence, where science concerns itself with the observable and the factual but religion concerns itself with the spiritual and moral. Many theists of the present time manage to make this philosophical leap.

Then the discoveries by Darwin and many other scientists that life proceeds not by a sudden miraculous creation 6,000 years ago, but by a combination of cosmic luck and survival of the fittest over millions and millions of years.

Later in succeeding years, other scientists tabulated their technical findings and showed the earth came about 4 billion years ago, not 6, 000, and the universe has existed at least 16 billion years! This setting of the sacred bar careens outrageously high so that only the most blind, or most compartmentalized, or the most irrationally determined can leap the bottomless chasm up and over the cosmically high bar of hope.

Good grief, what convoluted hypocritical rhetoric!

Multi-millions of human beings have 'scratched'. Been Disqualified.

Reflecting on the Awe and Wonder of Reality

If we as humans reject the horrific unethical beliefs of many Muslims, Christians, and Hindus such as their claims that a god plans all evils, natural disasters, plagues, famines, murders, rapes, and human slaughters...
And we already have rejected delusions and fanciful mythological stories of religions in general as various thoughtful theists have done since Plato...

HOW
do we limited human primates go about thinking about “Ultimate Reality”
(usually and traditionally termed “God”)?

Ah, the God question.

WHY?

Nothing like trying to solve the nature of existence, multi-billions of years of cosmic history, why the Big Bang happened, and why is it possible (to paraphrase Einstein) that mere primates came to self-aware consciousness
and the ability for creativity, reason,
science, technology, aesthetics, music,
moral realism including justics, human rights, and compassion.

The how is often answered by cosmologists speculating about multi-verses and quantum events. Fascinating stuff. As for humanity’s sometime actions of altruism, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins speculates that ethical ideals might have come about by a “misfiring” of evolution.

However open agnostics such as the astronomer Chris Impey of the University of Arizona-Tucson raise very good questions about the unusual anomaly of Homo
sapiens in the midst of what appears to be an unconscious, thoughtless, amoral cosmos.

Astronomer Impey: “If the universe contained nothing more than forces operating on inanimate matter, it would not
be very interesting."

"The presence of sentient life-forms like us
(and perhaps unlike us) is the zest, or
the special ingredient, that gives cosmic
history dramatic tension."

"We’re made
of tiny subatomic particles and are part
of a vast space-time arena, yet
we hold both extremes
in our heads.”
How It Began By Chris Impey

Yes, the amazing ability of conscious primates to hold the concept of the macrocosm to the microcosm within each of our heads, to create new things which never existed, to have a sense of ought which often thwarts what is biologically advantageous...

So, if we humans want to move beyond our personal feelings and inner intuition in regard to Ultimate Reality, we need to look to brilliant scientists and philosophical thinkers.

While atheist thinkers have posited that everything is due to cosmic
Chance (Jacques Monad, Stephen Jay Gould)
or
Necessity/Determinism (Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne),
in striking contrast
astrophysicists such as George Ellis,
thinkers such as mathematician/philosopher
Alfred Lord Whitehead
and philosopher Charles Hartshorne
think that Meaning and Creativity and the Good
are at the center
and beginning of
everything.

Consciousness, creativity, reason, morality, aesthetics are somehow inherent
in the essential essence of the cosmos,
not meaningless anomalies like atheists claim.

Since Charles Hartshorne comes from a Quaker background, attended Haverford Quaker College
and is the most recent brilliant theistic thinker,
let’s first take a look at him
and his concepts and philosophy
which he terms,
panentheism.

Earliest Spiral Galaxy

For Hartshorne, the future is OPEN. Creativity, possibility are there. God and all conscious life have real alternative choices to create.

"A hallmark of Hartshorne’s neoclassical theism is that the universe is a joint creative product of (a) the lesser creators that are the creatures, localized in space and time, and (b) the eminent creator which is God whose influence extends to every creature that ever has or that ever will exist."
--Donald Wayne Viney, Pittsburg State University
http://www.iep.utm.edu/hart-d-t/

"Charles Hartshorne, (born June 5, 1897, Kittanning, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died October 10, 2000, Austin, Texas), American philosopher, theologian, and educator known as the most influential proponent of a “process philosophy,” which considers God a participant in cosmic evolution."

"The descendant of Quakers and son of an Episcopalian minister, Hartshorne attended Haverford College before serving as a medical orderly in World War I. He completed his undergraduate education at Harvard University...earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1923. Hartshorne studied in Germany (1923–25), where he met Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl."

"He returned to lecture at Harvard (1925–28), after which he taught philosophy at the University of Chicago (1928–55) and at Emory University in Atlanta,
Georgia (1955–62). He then taught...philosophy at the University of Texas--Austin...He also served as president of the American Philosophical Association and the Metaphysical Society of America."
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Hartshorne

In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

Quilters' Heaven: Starred Night

STARRED NIGHT is another beautiful, creative quilt by Betsy Wilcox

Here is another one of her incredible quilts: PSYCHEDELIC COLORBURST.

My sweetheart created this sunburst quilt of color for me last year. What if I had gotten this quilt from her back when I drove my Chevy van, "The Mystical Hippopotamus," across country in September 1967?:-)

At university, Long Beach State, I was a painting and drawing major for a couple of years--especially liked working in oil and acrylic, so am an avid follower of my wife's quilting heavenly pursuits.

Betsy is an amazing artist, good at math, structure, and has a degree in French and Linguistics from the University of California at Irvine.

In the Light of BEAUTY,

Daniel Wilcox

A Cosmic View

Don't miss this mind-expanding science documentary,
Journey to the Edge of the Universe.

Journey is a powerful documentary on the nature of the cosmos,
vividly rendered and narrated.

Despite having read a fair number of science, astronomy, and cosmology books in my brief time, including one I am still reading, The Elegant Universe by astronomer Brian Greene, I was still wowed by this excellent documentary.

The film is user-friendly, but not basic. It stretches the mind. And one feels awe and admiration, and a sense of infinity.

Thanks to National Geographic for creating the film, and for ever-rewarding Netflix making it available.

And the movie was a welcome vacation from the daily news. In the midst of so much wrong, sorrow, angst, despair, and human debacle, it was a very good time to step back and take a cosmic view through a science video.

Viewing and hearing about the limitless, intellectually beautiful structure of the universe, and it's cosmic journey creating time and space as it advances into an ever expanding reality, was exhilarating and helped me keep the current bad religious and political scene in perspective.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Wonder of the Transcendent Good

If we as humans reject the horrific unethical beliefs of many Muslims, Christians, and Hindus (Part #1 The Horror of God Belief), and we already have rejected delusions and fanciful mythological stories of religions in general as various thoughtful theists have done since Plato...
HOW
do we go about thinking of Ultimate Reality
(usually and traditionally termed “God”)?

Ah, the God question.

WHY?

Nothing like trying to solve the nature of existence, billions of years of cosmic history, why the Big Bang happened, and why is it possible (to paraphrase Einstein) that mere primates came to self-aware consciousness
and the ability for creativity, reason,
science, aesthetics,
and compassion.

The how is often answered by cosmologists speculating about multi-verses and quantum events. Fascinating stuff. As for humanity’s sometime action of altruism, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins speculates that ethical ideal might have come about by a “misfiring” of evolution.

However open agnostics such as the astronomer Chris Impey of the University of Arizona-Tucson raise very good questions about the unusual anomaly of Homo sapiens in the midst of what appears to be an unconscious, thoughtless, amoral cosmos.

Astronomer Impey: “If the universe contained nothing more than forces operating on inanimate matter, it would not
be very interesting."

"The presence of sentient life-forms like us
(and perhaps unlike us) is the zest, or
the special ingredient, that gives cosmic
history dramatic tension."

"We’re made
of tiny subatomic particles and are part
of a vast space-time arena, yet
we hold both extremes
in our heads.”
How It Ends? By Chris Impey

Yes, the amazing ability of conscious primates to hold the concept of the macrocosm to the microcosm within each of our heads, to create new things which never existed, to have a sense of ought which often thwarts what is biologically advantageous….

So if we humans want to move beyond our personal feelings and inner intuition in regard to God, we need to look to brilliant philosophical thinkers.

While atheist thinkers have posited that everything is due to cosmic
Chance (Jacques Monad, Stephen Jay Gould) or
Necessity/Determinism (Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne),
in striking contrast mathematician/philosopher
Alfred Lord Whitehead
and philosopher Charles Hartshorne
think that Meaning and Creativity and the Good
are at the center
and beginning of
everything.

Consciousness, reason, ethics, aesthetics are somehow inherent
in the essential essence of the cosmos,
not meaningless anomalies like atheists claim.

Since Charles Hartshorne comes from a Quaker background, attended Haverford Quaker College
and is the most recent brilliant theistic thinker,
let’s first take a look at him
and his concepts and philosophy
which he terms,
panentheism.

Earliest Spiral Galaxy

For Hartshorne, the future is OPEN. Creativity, possibility are there. God and all conscious life have real alternative choices to create.

For instance,
"When Scrooge, in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, asks the Ghost of Christmas Future whether he is seeing the shadows of the things that “will be” or the shadows of the things that “may be only,” he is expressing in a precise way Hartshorne’s analysis of future tense statements."

"If the shadows are of the things that “will be,” then all hope is lost, but if they are the shadows of the things that “may be only” then Scrooge can change his ways and make for himself a different future."

"A hallmark of Hartshorne’s neoclassical theism is that the universe is a joint creative product of (a) the lesser creators that are the creatures, localized in space and time, and (b) the eminent creator which is God whose influence extends to every creature that ever has or that ever will exist."

By Donald Wayne Viney, Pittsburg State University

http://www.iep.utm.edu/hart-d-t/


"Charles Hartshorne, (born June 5, 1897, Kittanning, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died October 10, 2000, Austin, Texas), American philosopher, theologian, and educator known as the most influential proponent of a “process philosophy,” which considers God a participant in cosmic evolution."

"The descendant of Quakers and son of an Episcopalian minister, Hartshorne attended Haverford College before serving as a medical orderly in World War I. He completed his undergraduate education at Harvard University...earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1923. Hartshorne studied in Germany (1923–25), where he met Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl."

"He returned to lecture at Harvard (1925–28), after which he taught philosophy at the University of Chicago (1928–55) and at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (1955–62). He then taught...philosophy at the University of Texas--Austin...He also served as president of the American Philosophical Association and the Metaphysical Society of America."

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Hartshorne


*Side Note: Of course, some thoughtful people come to the conclusion there is no Ultimate Source/Essence. Nontheist and atheistic Quakers, Christian nontheists, religious atheists—all claim that there is no Essence, no Transcendence. Only matter and energy reign. It appears that they use religious language to describe their feelings and subjective preferences, nothing more. If you would like to read about nontheism, check back in to some of my posts on that subject.

To be continued--

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Cosmos Between Our Ears:-)

Photo by Craig Goodwin



“See, most Christians are taught that they are a part of a sweeping, cosmic drama with a story arc that spans all eternity.”
Neil Carter

When Roman Catholics and Protestants, Muslims, and Jews see this “sweeping, cosmic drama”
through the lens of literalism and fundamentalism, their view is delusional.

They adamantly reject most of modern science, especially physics and biology,
in order to hold onto a 6 24-hour-day creation, and that the universe is
only 6,000 years old, and that the Sun miraculously stood still for Joshua, etc.

Thinker Neil Carter is right to have abandoned such an unscientific,
untrue view of existence.

But in a different way, many modern scientists, including non-religious ones, do think
humankind is “part of a sweeping, cosmic drama with a story arc that spans all eternity.”

In the scientific cosmology book The View from the Center of the Universe,
physicist Joel R. Primack presents such a view of existence, of reality.

Joel R. Primack is a professor of physics and astrophysics at the University of California—Santa Cruz. His area of research includes relativistic quantum field theory, cosmology, and particle astrophysics.

And in How It Began, a book of the history of the universe back to the Big Bang,
the author Chris Impey, an astronomer and professor of the University
of Arizona, Tucson writes, “If the universe contained nothing
more than forces operating on inanimate matter,
it would not be very interesting."

"The presence of sentient life-forms like us (and perhaps unlike us) is the zest, or the special ingredient, that gives cosmic history dramatic tension. We’re made of tiny subatomic particles
and are part of a vast space-time arena,
yet
we hold both extremes in our heads.”

Yes, the cosmos between our ears;-)

So no one needs join the naysayers and nihilists who claim that reality
is "meaningless" and "purposeless."

We don't need to start describing homo sapiens as "puppets,"
"meat robots," "tumors all the way down," "bags of chemicals,"
etc. like many atheist leaders do.
--

Astronmer Chris Impey goes on to ask, “Are we nothing more than
cosmic flotsam, contingent outcomes of evolution,
collections of atoms that got a little lucky?

Or are we built deeply into the architecture of the universe?

Scientists can’t answer these questions..."

However, of course, scientists do speak out, do speculate on the ultimate nature
of reality, of whether there is a mulit-verse, of whether or not there is anything beyond
or transcending matter and energy.

Astrophysics professor Joel R. Primack:
“The history of the universe is in every one of us. Every particle in our
bodies has a multibillion-year past, every cell and every bodily organ has
a multimillion-year past, and many of our ways of thinking have multi-thousand-year pasts."

"Each of us is a kind of nerve center where these various cosmic histories intersect.
Time is one key to appreciate what we are. Ancient creation stories
[such as the Genesis account of the Bible of Jews, Christians, and Muslims] reflected
the universe as people saw it with the naked eye through the lens of their cosmology.

"But humans have gone far beyond in discovering what exists, how it works,
and new ways to think about it. We can measure time not only by seasons and years
but by radioactive decay, by the life cycles of stars, and by the expansion of the universe."

Our theories, such as relativity, illuminate the whole cosmos conceptually,
letting us think productively on an awesome range of scales and phenomena.”
The View from the Center of the Universe
Physicist Joel R. Primack and co-writer Nancy Ellen Abrams,
professors at the University of California, Santa Cruz
--
Yes, our perspective has changed from a very tiny one of a 6 24-hour day creation
and a cosmos only about 6,000 years old to the almost impossible to imagine
but factually-proven cosmos of the Big Bang.

That blast into being and becoming started about 14 billion years ago
and now the universe covers trillions and trillions and trillions of miles out
every which way, and is continually expanding space and time far beyond
our intellectual understanding
and imagining.

But when we study and think and hold onto the accumulation
of all these facts and proven theories it can all reside, yes, between our ears!

How amazing our human consciousness, searching and reasoning abilities,
and yet so limited.

Within our finite mind, we conceptually understand a little of the distant
past and the infinite future, and we are here at midpoint—
an infinitesimal conscious primate given
the ability to conceive and to search out
and to try to understand
a teaspoon-full of the Milky Way.

A shot-glass of infinity!

No metaphor can't begin to hold
the breathless incredible expanse of it all.

To be continued—

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox