The Pageless Book

Rev. Michael Dowd was the guest speaker at the UU church I attend this Sunday. He’s the author of a book entitled Thank God for Evolution, which has been endorsed by five Nobel Laureates, all of whom have were awarded the prize in science related fields. Rev. Dowd considers himself an Evolutionary Evangelist; he and his wife have been traveling the U.S. for the last six years preaching Evolution Theology. It’s worth a look-see…

So… look and see already!

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1. I believe that all beliefs are inherently flawed.
2. I believe that the process of understanding which we call “logic” is also inherently flawed.
3. I believe that the interpretation of evidence which we call “science” is also inherently flawed.
4. I believe that logic and science is the best measure of reality to which humanity has access.
5. I believe that there is a Divine Source.
6. I believe that Divine Source is unknowable.
7. I believe that Divine Source to be beyond human description.
8. I believe that the belief in the Divine Source does not contradict logic or science.
9. I believe that spiritual behavior exhibited by humanity is evidence of the existence of a Divine Source.
10. I believe that the psychological make-up of humanity is evidence of the existence of a Divine Source.
11. I believe that my own experiences are evidence of the existence of a Divine Source.
12. I believe that the evidence I have of the existence of a Divine Source is too subjective to be considered in a serious logical argument.
13. I believe that subjectivity and objectivity is a distinction made for the convenience of the human mind, which only approximates the limits of reality as the human mind can understand it.
14. I believe that morality can never be objective.
15. I believe that morality is not dictated by the Divine Source, but by the greater good for all humanity.
16. I believe that morality evolves.
17. I believe that morality is a function of evolution.
18. I believe we are evolving.
19. I believe that tolerance is proof that we are evolving.
20. I believe that, as humanity grows, tolerance will become essential for our survival.
21. I believe that we will survive.
22. I believe that we are not special in comparison to the rest of creation.
23. I believe that we are not stewards or subjects of nature, but rather are microcosms of the environment we create.
24. I believe that each part mirrors the whole.
25. I believe that with the evolution of each part, the whole itself is elevated.
26. I believe that the Divine Source is the whole, and is what the whole can become, and is    greater than what the whole could ever be.
27. I believe that the Divine Source speaks clearest through the events of our lives.
28. I believe that prophets and spiritual teachers hear the Divine Source the clearest because they pay attention.
29. I believe that we can all become prophets.
30. I believe it is we who makes that which is holy, sacred.

… There are more, but I think 30 is a good number with which to start.

Top Photo by Ubi Desperare Nescio. Bottom Photo by Wickedly Smart.

The following is a guest post by Evan Hadkins from WellbeingandHealth.net, a friend and frequent visitor to this blog. The genesis of this post was a comment he left in response to my article on The Nature of Reality that I posted a few weeks ago. I was so impressed by his comment, that I asked him to expand his thoughts here as a guest poster.

Above Photo by Laura. Photo Below by Lian Xiaoxiao. Final Photo by Alexandre Dulaunoy.

In the modern west, reality is split into with-in-my-skin and beyond-my-skin. I find this a useful distinction - building a house of bricks is very different to the building of a philosophy. The problem, as I see it, has been assigning priority to within-the-skin or beyond-the-skin. One of these is taken to be “the really real” and the other to be its effect. Both these views are prevalent.

Some people (usually advocating science and objectivity) think that it is the beyond-the-skin that is the important reality. They advocate psychology as the study of behaviour. Or see behaviour as the outcome of brain chemicals. There are those who believe that the within the skin is most real. They will assert that “it is with our thoughts that we make the world” and say that the difference between success and failure is motivation or attitude. Perhaps the most famous advocate of this approach is Louise Hay who believes that physical diseases are the manifestation of (and can be fixed by) our thoughts or “affirmations”.

Both of these approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. My point is that both are partial. I do not wish to advocate for either side of this dilemma. My approach is that reality is the experience of the meeting between me and this other stuff. Reality is a human experience.

In the west there has been the attempt to ‘filter out’ the subjective element; to somehow stand outside ourselves. This project is doomed. If I stand outside myself it is still the “I” doing the observing. Objectivity in this sense is not possible. Subjectivity in the sense of “what is can be whatever I make it” is just silly. However, seeing that my experience and action is affected by my past experience, my current thoughts, beliefs and feelings is entirely verifiable.

The search for the nature of reality is one part of reality investigating another. Thus my teeth, tongue and taste buds investigate a piece of food. My enjoyment doesn’t mean that the food isn’t objectively real. Neither does the objectively real atomic structure of the food invalidate my enjoyment. Reality is this: meeting of the me and not-me. Reality is the meeting, not one part of the story.

When it comes to discussion of god the split between the within-the-skin and the beyond-the-skin parties is very much in evidence. There is a rash at the moment of books by militant atheists of the Chris Hitchens’ school saying that science and objectivity tell us what is so and that belief in god is ’subjective’ or ‘mythical’ and so forth. In contrast, there are also those who assert that their own thoughts and feelings mean that god (objectively) exists. This is hardly helpful. Those who attack the claim for god’s reality are often attacking the wrong ‘god’. In Christian theology, the field I know best, the “objectively real god” who sits somewhere outside physical reality, has not been taken seriously for decades. The serious theologians see that god is in the process, not outside “it”.

My suggestion is that we take seriously the experience of those who speak of god. “God” is a human experience - just as are the equations describing the behaviour of sub-atomic particles. This means that the attack on ‘belief in God’ is beside the point. It is not belief that is at issue but experience.

This makes it essential for those who are ‘believers’ to be able to say what their experience of God is. A central question is the what counts as evidence. Does what occurs in the lab judge the rest of our lives? Much of what we find personally convincing is unlikely to be duplicated in a lab. A personal anecdote to make the point: A friend of mine would greet whoever picked up the phone by name before they had spoken. (This was before the days of caller ID.) He would do this consistently and reliably. This I find personally convincing. Could it be replicated in a lab, perhaps. Could it be replicated by others randomly chosen? Almost certainly not. But this doesn’t make it less convincing to me.

To have a fruitful discussion of the nature of reality and of the existence of god we need to move beyond the objective (beyond-the-skin-is-real) and subjective (within-the-skin-is-real) dispute. We need to begin speaking to each other about our experience. We need to be able to say what our experience of ‘god’ is or why we see the ’scientific’ account as more convincing. When we can start talking about what our words describe I think this discussion will be able to move forward in a fruitful way.

One of the things that some of the more hard-core atheists pride themselves on is being firmly placed in reality. The argument is that because theists choose to believe in something not verifiable by modern science, they are delusional. A delusional person is not in touch with reality. There are atheists who use this as a reason to argue that they are superior to theists. If by reality they mean “only that which is verifiable by modern science,” it would seem that they are correct. However, reality is more than just what is observable.

There is a great deal that can be experienced in the natural world that cannot be measured or verified by the scientific method. Just as much as the ground under you feet, your dreams, thoughts, and feelings are aspects of reality. Artwork, fiction, poetry, music, and acting each can illuminate truth that cannot be defined empirically, but can be felt. In our dreams and within any works of artistic endeavors there is a sense of “realness” that is immeasurable.

Reality is fluid - it takes the shape of the container in which you place it. The shape of your reality’s “container” is dictated by your paradigm. A paradigm is a filter through which you experience reality; it is the accumulation of preferences, prejudices, and protocol shaped both by physical ability and experience. Language is a key factor to an individual paradigm, as is childhood memories.

In the same way your paradigm shapes your reality, it also limits your reality. One bucket full of water is not an accurate representative of all the forms which water can take; in the same way your paradigm is not representative of the fullness of reality. Every paradigm is flawed or missing some aspect of reality. However, this does not mean that every paradigm is equal. To continue my metaphor, Lake Michigan is a lot closer to representing all the forms of water than a bucket of water. Broader paradigms, although still limited, are more accurate than narrow paradigms.

Science attempts to utilize one of the broadest paradigm possible by including only those ideas which can be tested and verified by a community of peers. However, this is still a paradigm, as it is limited to the scope of our ability to perceive the physical world, and does not include those phenomena that are immeasurable. One day science may progress so far as to be able to measure and understand even those phenomena which are currently outside its paradigm. However, to reject the fundamental reality of those things which remain untestable simply due to one paradigm’s limitations is short sighted.

The Divine is one of those aspects of reality which does not fit so neatly into every paradigm. It is so often reinterpreted and misunderstood as a result of our individual paradigms that no single broad paradigm can reach consensus with a majority of people. As a result, it is often easier to exclude that concept from our mutual paradigm. Could this be because the Divine truly does not exist? Is the Divine nothing more than myth?

It is true that one of the reasons why the concept of the Divine has not reached consensus could be due to the Divine not being real in a universal sense, but rather be real a limited individual sense. If this were the case, non-theists would have a valid argument against theism in all forms. Still, when the whole of human history is looked at in an honest manner, you cannot help but notice the consistency in which the Divine manifests itself in every culture. There is another possible reason why the Divine remains so consistent in human cultures, yet is so subject to individual opinion; it could be that when we talk about God or the Divine, we are really referencing to the ultimate reality which no single paradigm can adequately explain.

Might I be wrong? Of course, but I don’t think that is adequate reason to not expand my own paradigm beyond that provided by modern science. Albert Einstein had once said “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.” Limiting our paradigm to one branch of reality or another limits us as individual human beings and as a species. It is worth risking being wrong.

Temple Photo by Neal McQuaid. Blue Liquid Photo by Anticline. Bar Plaque Photo by Bruno Girin.

Above photo by Area10. Photo below by Daniel Villar Onrubia. Final image by Image Editor.

Apologetics do not work. Occasionally, a man or woman might be convinced of God’s existence as a result of Christian apologetics, but this is the rare exception rather than the rule. Attempts to develop logical reasons to believe in God just don’t make sense; it’s like attempting to find logical reasons to believe in love. Without a logical reason to believe in God, we have to accept God as an abstract idea that is unique to the human experience. This doesn’t sit well with most theists and I can understand why - it plays all too well into the arguments of atheists.

One issue with apologetics is that it attempts to serve two purposes; first to soothe the minds of believers who have doubts, and second to debate the issue with atheists. Believers are often more poetic, metaphorical, and are usually flexible as to the exact definition of a particular word. Atheists, on the other hand, tend to be literal and demand exacting definitions of words. Take for instance the meaning of the word “faith.” For the atheist, this word means the unwavering belief in something in the absence of evidence, and therefore they feel that faith is in opposition to logic. A believer would argue, however, that faith doesn’t occur in the head but rather in the heart - that faith does not conflict with logic at all. Both meanings are viable, but attempting to adapt your argument to both definitions lead to messy and meandering debates.

The other problem of apologetics is the use of soft logic as opposed to hard logic. Soft logic, which is logic rooted in non-physical concepts, works best when speaking to an audience that accepts your understanding of these non-physical concepts. Love is such an example of a non-physical concept; I love my cat, and I love my wife, but I don’t love my cat in the same way that I love my wife (one hopes). There is no way to quantify love, or distill it into it’s purest form. Atheists want something measurable and testable - they want hard logic. Believers try not to meet atheism on that front and, quite honestly, when believers do try they often fail due to their loose grasp of the nature of scientific inquiry.

That isn’t to say there isn’t logical reasons to believe in God, however. Currently, there is only one scientific argument that I know of that could be made on the behalf of faith, but it involves accepting a few ideas with which most Christians feel uncomfortable. Neuroscience, which is the research into the human brain, shows that religious and spiritual experiences originate from a specific area of the brain nearly identically in each individual, regardless of faith. While some non-theists have harped upon this as being proof that spiritual experience is nothing more than a quirk of the brain, I would seriously have to argue against that view.

If this region of the brain is present in the majority of the human species, regardless of faith or non-faith, than it must have been the product of evolution. This leads us to the interesting question of what evolutionary purpose that particular function of our brain serves. The ability to have spiritual experiences needs to contribute to the success of the species if it is to be perpetuated through evolution. While a deity may not be the only explanation, it certainly seems that I am at a loss for any other logical reasons for this development. Should one be found, though, I seriously doubt that this would completely invalidate spirituality. It would be cast in a different light, to be sure, but I suspect it would also raise new and more interesting questions.

Regardless of whether science validates religious and spiritual experience or seemingly invalidates it, my faith need not falter. I experience God in the same manner that I experience love, faith, or happiness. No amount of scientific discovery can strip me of what it means to be human, so long as I remain true to myself. This is the ultimate logic behind faith in God; it is real because of my personal experience and personal meaning. It is apart of my heritage as a human being to have faith in and honor something greater than all of humanity.

For more information on the scientific inquire into spiritual experiences, see the following articles:

• Seeking God in the Brain — Efforts to Localize Higher Brain Functions
• The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet - Review
• Religion and the Brain: Can science explain experience?
• The Neuroscience of Consciousness
• Your Brain on Religion: Mystic visions or brain circuits at work?
• Tracing the Synapses of Our Spirituality