glintofpewter

It happens - Sugarland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph49YlxCqi8

Trust Evil requires intention. Nature has no intention. Nature needs no explanation as far as purpose or significance is concerned. However we suffer I have no need to find meaning. If knowledge about its cause could prevent a repetition then that is useful. But meaning and purpose are not. I think the following questions fail to understand the process and power of evolution. Shouldn't the basic question be why does an organism need nourishment? Don't tell me that a carnivore is somehow worse because of its diet. Why does any organism need nourishment. Why does it take supernova (death of star on a scale that makes a carnivore look like virus) to create all the elements for carbon based life forms? If something didn't die we wouldn't live. It can't be any simpler or have less meaning. If you reject it then reject it. If you think it is only story then stop using it in discussing evolution. If a literal reading of Adam and Eve is not your reading then stop. Argue your own position not that of someone who reads the story literally. Dutch

Each time I have seen this video I lose my respect for Haidt. Just a collection of popular ideas and images. No, self-transcendence is acheivable through meditation and other individual practices. The practices may involve self-denial. See Sam Keen's response below. Modern sensory satiation may keep us from looking for the staircase This suggests an inherent fixed attribute which I think is not accurate. It might describe the process. Here, in a religious context is how John Haught, theologian, would describe it. I have become part of the whole, as Haidt describes it, at a football field - A Promise Keepers gathering. When asked about transcendent experiences of the sacred in a group Sam Keen responded that they are very dangerous and asks the audience to consider: Nuremberg rallies producing psuedo sacred experiences - werner erhart - jimmy swaggart - being born again - several times http://fora.tv/2010/...God#fullprogram I think there is a valuable discussion to be held about bonding and the evolution of prosocial behavior - and a different conversation about transcendent experiences. Haidt is tagging along. Dutch

Brent, We've discussed a variety of ideas but you seem to have fit them all into one sentence. Evolutionary and Relevatory religion. I accept and understand the contrast being made here I think. It seems a simple truth to say that there is a tension between what is known and a novel insight, whether in the arts or religion or science. A novelty which is recognized as revelatory gradually reforms the evolutionary (using it as UP uses it to refer to the conservative value of tradition) arts or science or religion. without recognition of novelty there would be no growth. So are we talking about potential for the evolving [spiritual] growth [of an individual] who through her progressive enculturation (loved, taught and grown accustomed) into a religion may be made ready and open to an epiphany and inspired to evolve to a spiritual religion? from squaredcircles Many are trying to awaken the world similarly. Dutch

We are the waters in which God swims. K. Lizardy-Hajbi

Amen

Your referenced article is not part of the conversation nor should that be the expectation. Suggesting that anyone is finding it difficult to research that linked article is . . . well I think you can discern how that sentence might end. We enjoy hearing your own voice. Dutch

It took me awhile

Trust, I offered a metaphorical connection between your view and mine. That seems to have been missed. For the last 20-30 years I have been prophesying, whenever I am asked for an answer, that the answer is "37 true." People keep denying that that answer is relevant to their question. Are you also going to deny that the answer is "37 true". As long as we deny "37 true" we are gravitating toward a very human centered perspective. Likewise I deny any meaning to "Natural Evil". I have already made my arguments. It is nonsensical to me to include the story of Adam and Eve in the evolutionary history of the universe. Did it happen before or after homo sapiens evolved? Were Adam and Eve part of the first but unsuccessful move of homo sapiens into the Levant? Did Adam and Eve live before Neanderthals? Since many of us have a small amount of Neanderthal genetic material the answer seems yes. So maybe Adam and Eve lived 500,000 years ago. Good, Love and empathy were evolving before this so how far back would we have to put the Garden of Eden so it made sense in the ongoing history of the evolution of the universe. It is a powerful story. To force it into evolutionary history deflates it. Dutch

Brent, Very poetic, dense in meaning Dutch

The conversation has gone pass my comment but . . . My comment that "Natural Evil does not exist..." was about the concept embodied in those terms not about the suffering of people. I regret that I wasn't more clear. I agree with George that if we must talk about captial "E" Evil we must look for intent. I see no Natural Intent. Therefore Natural Evil does not exist. Evil is an overused word which distracts us from attending to human relationships and human suffering. There are many things we say to each other when we share our sufferings. What works for some does not work for others. I would not describe the barrier to feeling one with the Source as mutual forgiveness but perhaps saying, as I might, that we must open ourselves to the transcendent experience mirroring God's making room for creation would seem parallel. Dutch

the bad things that happen to good people are not the result of "Natural Evil"

You are right. I would duck.

Natural Evil does not exist - it is a anthrocentric, egocentric, selfish construct. "Oh poor,Poor, pitiful me." We would like to blame someone. In the Hebrew scriptures we said God did it because we blew it. Then we said the Devil did it to get God off the hook. We can harm each other but Evil is the product of a large group. We are individuality responsible/culpable. God is with us. Dutch

George, Is there an overlap with Bart Ehrman's book on the historical Jesus? Dutch

perhaps a mobius strip

The story of Adam and Eve is an attempt to understand why bad things happen to good people just as you are attempting to. But evolutionary history of the universe does not include the story of Adam and Eve - and there is no history before the story of Garden of Eden. Evolutionary history and stories in Genesis don't overlap. They function in different ways to explain and understand the world. I don't believe "natural evil" exists in the evolution of the universe. Things just happen. The many layers and understandings of the story of the so called "Fall" lets us try to understand why life is hard and we harm each other. I guess we could imagine a static world in which nothing moved or bumped into anything else but this universe is dynamic. Tectonic plates shift, volcanoes erupt and the same processes that led to the evolution of you and me also leads to the evolution of both good and bad bacteria and cancer. Without death there is no life. It just happens. and the One who is the Source of all waits for us to recognize the ultimate companionship on our journey. If you see evil don't look to find someone to blame look forward to see what can be done to make things better. That's our assignment. Just as Adam and Eve took on the difficult assignments of tilling the soil and birthing a people. Learning how to live together. Esau and Jacob, Cain and Abel - so many stories in Genesis about this. I keep my own list of the many ways to understand the story of Adam and Eve and there are several threads on this message board about Good and Evil. If I find the links I will post them here but I don't want to co-opt the many thoughtful responses you will get here now. Dutch

Not a description of Whitehead's but of my own which arose out of his ideas and others that followed to the extent I have found them useful and within my understanding. See also post #27. The progression of my thinking probably visited Emergent Materialism, if I had known the words. In evolution the mind arose out of the brain but the mind is not wholly determined by the brain and has influence on the brain's processes. For me this is a more satisfactory description and explanation of the mind/body relationship. All entities are externally and internally related; they influence each other. A complete description of the universe requires observations of both relationships. Materialism only observes the external relationships and processes. Consciousness, ideas, experiences of beauty and transcendence are within the scope of internal relationships. This is the relationship between the One that became two bringing about God becoming and Universe, so that there might be relationship. There is mutual influence A panentheism. I think it is useful to say that God evolved as the universe evolved and that many qualities and values we see as eternal are projections on the past. Love as a quality of relationship may not have existed when One became two. A Christian view might say that the One making room for the Other was the first and continuing sacrifice of love. To speak of two, perhaps, is not to say that there is a separation that can be spoken of meaningfully. The self is observable between birth and death but after death it can be said that I return to the one self (the internal relationship) and to the elements, popularly star dust, from which the body arose (the external relationship). Dutch

Welcome, I can empathize with the burden of translation. Only a few here are reticent. Dutch

Many of us here would say that metaphor is the best we can do in describing what we experience. Our posts over lapped.My second post explains some of what you ask. I will get back to you on the bullet points Dutch

from your web site I think the limitation is that one believes that the consciousness has to be cast aside to examine the problem. Yes, the mind is a difficult for materialist to explain and so it is often eliminated. I agree that the limits of my physical self, evidence of which is provided by my physical senses, is the skin. But I don't think the mind experiences the world that way. Jill Bolte Taylor experienced a loss of that sense of boundary when she had a severe left brain stroke. When her left brain went silent she experienced the boundarylessness, transcendent experience that seems based in the right brain. Before and during she had a consciousness of self, not limited, it seems to me, by the physical events in her brain.

Is there no written record from surrounding cultures to add light? If one wanted to pursue the issue.

Rom, I used labels as short hand for more complex ideas as you did. I just didn't always understand when those words applied to you or someone else. I have seen most of the Symphony of Science videos often and particularly like Jill Bolte Taylor segment in "Ode to the Brain" I used part of it for my Christmas card. snippets from the video I don't understand how many of the statements can be held the restrictive scientific materialistic frame work, even given the complexity of the brain. How can nature have an imagination? How can the Cosmos have consciousness? How can we know where we came from? How can we long to return? Sagan makes clear that this idea for him is more than the physical "from stardust". These seem to fit the category mysticism for me. To me it seems obvious that a scientific materialism falls short in providing an explanation of these feelings and intuitions. What does it mean to say "we long to return" scientifically? How can we say "the Cosmos comes to know itself"? without referring to something other than a materialist world many scientists say is the boundary of nature. I think Alfred North whitehead's ideas about all entities being related externally and internally offers a more complete explanation. Dutch

Hi, Brian, Sometimes it is hard for shy people here. Your congregation is blessed by your participation there. And we will be by your participation here. Welcome Dutch

Stephen, Why don't you start a neo-pagan thread focused on whatever interests you? Dutch