Day: March 7, 2017
Trust in God
Existence is Relationship
There is a unifying principle in the universe. Physicists seek it in a Grand Unified Theory (or Theory of Everything) and the clergy seek it in God. Therefore, the topic of unity in the universe seems to be a reasonable area where science and religion can begin to have a meaningful encounter with each other. I would even go so far as to say that to the extent to which science and religion cannot be unified one must hold their theories and theologies under suspect. This is the premise I take in my future book, entitled “Proving God.” So, for the purposes of this mini-discussion, I would like to provide a few examples of how existence is founded on relationship.
In the current scientific model of atomic structure everything is held together by an exchange of photons, gluons and quarks. In the human body and other forms of bio-complexity in nature, everything is held together by an exchange of labor. Human society is also held together through an exchange of labor and sharing our special talents as well.
Human cognition involves recognition of ratios and proportions, which are relationships (out of which springs mathematical reasoning). Neuroscience is moving closer to the idea that human affection focuses our attention and shapes our memory by forming new relationships between thoughts and ideas (which lead to creative imagination and abstract thinking).
Marriage between two people is a most intimate sharing of each other’s lives.
It seems that for anything new to come into existence, previous (a priori) things must coexist, that is, form relationships.
Love is relationship. Religion can be looked at as a lawful strategy for taking the unifying dynamic operating in the universe even further. Loving God and the neighbor represents the epitome of relationship forming. Scripture teaches us that all the law of the prophets hangs on these two expressions of love. (I cannot imagine a legitimate religion that is not founded on those two tenets.)
If there be a unifying principle in the universe, LOVE would make a good one! Here’s why. First of all, love is psychical and operates within the human mind. The mind cannot be said to operate in space. Therefore, love gives us a unifying principle of agency that can exist as a special initial condition of a pre-natal universe when time equaled zero (t = 0). Having its domain in pre-space, we are given a unifying principle whereby every created thing can be non-locally connected simultaneously—towards an eternal goal.
Love is the one force that absolutely necessitates the constants of law and a fine-tuned universe because it creates through self-similarity. This self-similarity (correspondence) finds its ultimate expression of unified relationship in the bio-complexities of living organisms and finally the human race through God’s covenant. Love also offers a new way to view top-down causation in a way that preserves self-consistency through discrete operations.
The manifest universe emerged out of a conscious living force. Physics (classical and quantum) has to be reformulated to reflect this principle or it will fail to find the answer to the nature of agency in the universe. Religion also needs a paradigm shift.
Any thoughts?
Posted in love, Reality, religion, science, unity Tagged complexity, Correspondence, god, marriage, neuroscience, paradigm shift, Quantum Physics, quarks, relationship, scripture, Theory of Everything, top-down causation, universe Leave a comment
Evolution and Religion
A big obstacle in unifying science with religion comes from the point of view that science deals with facts and religion deals with values. They each address quite different topics so some people feel there is no need to waste time trying to forge them together. Let them each do what they do best.
My new book project entitled “Proving God” will challenge this assumption. In my previous post I pointed out that the laws of physics somehow emerged from of a non-local and non-temporal void (that is, if you believe, like most scientists and theologians, that the universe had an actual beginning).
What is most conspicuous about the creation of the universe is that it not only entailed a distribution of energy and momentum but an ongoing process of self-organization. This organization of the cosmos continued to increase in the complexity of biosystems that ultimately led to the human brain. Whether this happened by design or chance scientists know that it is a fact that the manifest universe and organic life could not have come into existence unless the constants of nature met very tight tolerances. Did this “fine-tuning” of the universe, which allowed for the increase of intelligence and consciousness to emerge, have its origins from a creative principle operating in the pre-space void?
In the neo-Darwinian synthesis, which includes microbiology and genetics, evolution occurs from the ongoing strategies of genes to ensure reproduction under the pressures of a changing external environment. New species are the result of these survival strategies. However, the evolutionary trajectory has led to the human race, which enjoys first-person phenomenal experience. So evolution has a complex creature where values are very important.
All human values are derivatives of love. Affection, emotion, appetite, and intention all give focus to human cognitive function and steer it towards some valued goal. This is where religion enters into the picture of evolution. The human mind, which does not operate in space, can continue to develop and raise its level of complexity by adopting a more universal and noble love. What we love defines how our thoughts and ideas are put into some corresponding order and structure. In the same way that a human ear has evolved to be a subject for sound, human ideas represent the higher-ordered forms and subjects of our affections. Our thoughts and ideas are the non-material forms and bio-structure of what we love and intend. This creates our spiritual body.
Religion, which serves as a guide for choosing the optimum values for living, can therefore be looked at as a Divine strategy by which humans can extend evolution and bio-complexity into a non-physical domain. We call this realm heaven.
It is rational to think that the constancy and fine-tuning of laws in the universe is a faithful articulation of first causal principles. If the universe is self-consistent then the perfection of bio-complexity will more perfectly express the first principles of creation. Humans who raise their hearts and minds to spiritual love and its inclusiveness have successfully created a complexity of spirit that mirrors Divine Love. The ultimate scheme of creation and evolution is to create angels from the human race. This completes the dynamic and holistic process of creation emerging from an eternal non-physical reality and merging back into it. What do you think?
Posted in love, Reality, religion, science, unity Tagged angels, complexity, creation, emergence, evolution, god, heaven, laws, physics, values 2 Comments
Cruelty – What is its source?
Cruelty is seen at the cinema and on the television. We read about it in newspapers. There is probably an element of cruelty in your self which you have no wish to have
Although you may not always recognise this cruelty in yourself, you probably do notice many forms of the shadowy side of human behaviour in others: someone being heartless, spiteful, nasty, cruel, or even brutal. A task for personal growth is to learn to recognise the undesirable side of oneself. Hence the phrase most frequently employed by Jungian psychotherapists is `coming to terms with the shadow’. Jung was well aware of the reality of evil in human life.
Denial of cruelty and other evil
However, with a few other notable exceptions, psychologists and psychiatrists have, until recently, traditionally steered clear of speaking of evil per se. This despite the fact that virtually every culture has some word for evil.
“Most of us try hard to deny or avoid the reality of evil: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Or we attempt to neutralize it, dismissing evil as maya or illusion, as in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. It is tempting to deny the reality of evil entirely, due to its inherent subjectivity and relativity: ‘For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,’ says Shakespeare’s Hamlet, presaging the cognitive therapies of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck.” (Stephen A. Diamond, clinical & forensic psychologist)
Some examples of cruelty in history
When Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in October 1935 with fantasies of wealth and revenge for Italy’s defeat there forty years previously, he ordered poison gas to be sprayed indiscriminately from the air on military and civilian targets alike.
Stalin’s son Yakov shot himself because of Stalin’s harshness toward him. Stalin had several painters shot who did not depict him “right”.
Historians have estimated Stalin’s regime killed millions of people. Vadim Erlikman, for example, makes the following estimates: executions — 1.5 million; gulags — 5 million; deportations — 1.7 million out of 7.5 million deported; and POWs and German civilians — 1 million: thus a total of about 9 million victims of Stalin’s repression.
Is illness the cause of cruelty?
What is the cause of such appalling behaviour? Surely not just ignorant carelessness of the pain one can cause others? Those who take a benign view of human nature as basically good wonder if criminality of the worst kind must be due to illness?
Hitler was the author of the death of six million Jews, countless soldiers and civilians on both sides killed. These are the actions of a mass murderer. Serious medical biographers conclude that Hitler wasn’t mentally ill. Whether his beliefs were rational is an entirely different matter. Books by like those of Henrik Eberle Was Hitler Ill?and Fritz Redlick Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet conclude that he was sane according to any reasonable definition of the term, and fully responsible for his actions. I would say he had a passion for more greatness or power and no concern for anybody else than himself.
Swedenborg on the source of cruelty
In the West we are familiar with the notion of an afterlife of individual existence in a state of heaven or hell. Hell has traditionally been seen by Christians as a place of punishment as a result of God’s judgment. However a very different view is that a forgiving and loving deity would condemn no-one to a hellish state of existence as a result of any wrongdoing on earth. This approach suggests that although hell is not part of the divine plan nevertheless it is permitted as an inner state of heart and mind shared with others because it is actually preferred by some people, for then they can live within the same sphere as others who likewise want to be cruel and selfish and act in other inhuman ways.
This different view comes from Emanuel Swedenborg. He claimed that subjectively he was able to become conscious of an invisible realm in which his spirit existed and that as part of his journey within a spirit world he encountered some very unpleasant individuals. Many of these self-centred spirit people wanted to be obeyed and praised and were quick to feel slighted feeling various shades of contempt, vengefulness, nastiness and cruelty. The caring unselfish ones however had the opposite feelings.
But how does this account for inhuman actions in the world?
Swedenborg claimed that whilst the presence of these spirit people within his mind had become conscious, it usually remains unconscious with the rest of us. He says that spirit communicators had confirmed his experience that:
- The spirits of self-centred people as well as that of caring ones are unconsciously present with every one of us as we live our lives in the material world.
- Normally, these spirit people are totally unaware that they are with us as separate entities. Likewise we normally are unaware of them.
- They therefore believe that what we remember and think is actually their own memories and thoughts. Likewise we identify their feelings as our own.
- Because both sets of unconscious influences are balanced within our hearts and minds, we each have inner freedom to think and intend well or badly, honestly or dishonestly, fairly or unfairly. The source of our caring or nasty impulses arises outside of ourselves. We are responsible however for which way we face. We can open ourselves up to the negative or turn our face against it, taking instead on board the positive.
And so Swedenborg’s spiritual theory not only accounts for inhuman desires but also our freedom and responsibility to make the right personal choices.
Copyright 2013 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of Heart, Head & Hands Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems
Cruel humans — How can people be this way?
Nine-eleven was al-Qa’eda’s deliberate humiliation of the West. Such a cruel thing to do. I remember saying ‘Evil begets evil’, and so I am not surprised that this act of barbarism was followed by what I consider to be disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Other recent examples of being cruel
I would suggest that the brutality of some powerful people in the West can be heard in the voice of those politicians like US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld who said “There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan…We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around.”
Can human cruelty not also be seen in the action of President Bush who tossed aside the civilised principle of habeas corpus by setting up Guantanamo and other torture centres?
History of man’s inhumanity to man
These recent acts of human cruelty are part of a long history of man’s inhumanity to man. The massacres, looting and capturing of slaves by forces led by Attila the Hun in 5th century eastern Europe; the unrestricted bombing of civilians living in cities like Gunernica during the Spanish civil war; the starvation, brutal treatment and extermination of Jews, and other victims of persecution in the Nazi concentration camps.
Ordinary life is full of small acts of cruelty
Human cruelty of course goes on all the time perhaps in less dramatic ways and in a much smaller scale than these. Malicious gossip can destroy a personal reputation; spiteful actions can result in huge distress; nasty comments within close relationships can cause longstanding wounds.
We can all succumb to anger but why do some people feel contempt, or want revenge and act out their feelings in these ways?
Reasons for contempt and revenge
One answer that impresses me is to do with a common tendency towards self-orientation rather than concern for others and a materialistic rather than an ethical focus in our thinking. Depending on the way the individual chooses to live life, these two innocent inclinations can actually amount to self-centredness and preoccupation with bodily pleasures and possessions.
Prioritising number one means seeing things only from ones own selfish point of view rather than trying to understand the predicaments of others. Thinking in terms of physical things means neglecting the ethical dimension.
When people with this state of mind cannot get what they want, I would suggest they are likely to feel contempt towards those who do not favour them and revenge towards those who thwart their desires. Such hostility is the seed of cruel behaviour. When these feelings dominate and people believe they can get away with it, are they not more likely to do mischief, cause injury and act cruelly?
Not everyone thank goodness allows such ugly feelings to determine their actions. But some do. This is not to argue that people will not vary in their behaviour. Some are sometimes spontaneously cruel when experiencing strong feelings of scorn or wanting to get their own back on someone. Some people can make a deliberate plan to intentionally cause hurt. And yet others actually take sadistic pleasure in seeing inflicted pain.
Adolf Hitler is an example of the last of these who took great delight in repeatedly watching the film of the cruel deaths of those who had plotted to overthrow his regime. It’s all a matter of individual choice.
Danger of selfish anger
The main religions all warn against the dangers of this kind of selfish anger that can go wild like a forest fire. In his book Essential Spirituality Roger Walsh quotes a famous Zen story to dramatically makes this point.
A Japanese warrior approached a Zen master to request answers to some questions that had been troubling him. ‘What is it you want to know?’ queried the Zen master.
‘Tell me sir, do heaven and hell exist?’ ‘Ha! Snorted the Zen master in a tone that was half-laugh half-sneer. ‘What makes you think that you could understand such things? You are only an uneducated, brutish soldier. Don’t waste my time with your silly questions.’
For an instant the warrior froze in shock. No one, but no one ever speaks to a Japanese warrior like that. It meant instant death. ‘Are you too stupid to understand what I said?’ roared the Zen master. ‘Stop wasting my time and get out of here.’
The warrior exploded with rage. His hand flew like lightning to his sword and swept it aloft for the kill. But in the split second before the sword descended to crush the monk’s skull, he heard the words.
‘This is the gate to hell.’
Again the warrior froze in astonishment. His own rage brought hell to him and those he attacked. And the master had risked his life to make this fact inescapably clear. Breathing deeply, he slowly replaced his sword and bowed humbly in awe and respect.
‘And this,’ smiled the Zen master, ‘is the gate to heaven.’
Copyright 2011 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of Heart, Head & Hands Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems
Im ashamed to die until i have won some victory for humanity. 
Are you saying a spirit is a sort of embodiment of one’s thoughts?“The ultimate scheme of creation and evolution is to create angels from the human race.” Do you believe in reincarnation so that spirits can someday become perfect angels, or do you think imperfect spirits “die” into heaven and new ones are created with each baby born…in which case the perfect spirit is a Darwinian goal. My head hurts now, GodGuy!
The soul uses the mind to create a spiritual body within our physical body. Our mind, which consists of both volition and thought, is our spirit. The soul is created by God and is completely developed at our birth. But our spirit is the outcome of the values we choose in life from free will. It can mature and gain stature throughout our life. The spirit finds its embodiment from the ideas of our understanding because what we love and intend puts on form and structure from our thinking. Love adapts form (information) to its own disposition. The soul complies with the spirit to make this happen.
The mind does not operate in space nor is it under the constraints of physical law. For instance, you can share half of your knowledge with a friend and still keep ALL of your knowledge. You can’t do this when you share half of a physical apple with a friend. In spite of the fact that the mind operates beyond space it can take on perfect human form (it is who we really are). It chews, ruminates, and digests ideas so that they will enter into the fabric of our being in the same way that our digestive system prepares terrestrial food to become the fabric of our physical bodies.
The result of spiritual growth is non-physical bio-complexity, which Darwinian theory simply doesn’t address. Religion is God’s strategy to provide a means for humans to choose the best values so that the spiritual body can evolve properly. Heaven is not a place you go to, but is something you become.
I do not subscribe to reincarnation. Yet, even reincarnation would be ineffective if it did not lead to a complete reconstitution of our inner being. This topic is multifaceted and is discussed in greater detail in my next book entitled “Proving God.”