glintofpewter Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Found this while googling. I expect some of you have heard of Father Coyne. The Hampshire College Lecture is part of a series entitled Science and Religion. You can find the list of speakers at the first link. The best quality video I found is at Google video (over an hour). Coyne also made an appearance at NASA/Ames. This is his condensed version (under 30 minutes.) Hampshire College Science and Religion Speaker Series Father Coyne Hampshire College Google Video Are We Alone Father Coyne at NASA/Ames As I understand his ideas: The universe is fertile because it is 13.7 billion years old and there are 1022 stars. It takes lots of time and lots of stars dying and aborning to create all elements for life. Life was not possible until 12 billion years after the Big Bang but then there were billions of chances that it would occur. Coyne, at one point, muses about a God that hoped and prayed that there would be creatures like us with whom to have a relationship. Then came by chance a self-conscious and self-reflecting being. The universe is no longer expanding blindly . "In us the universe is thinking about itself." It is a dance of three: chance, necessity and fertility. "It took a lot of time and many opportunities for two hydrogen atoms to chance upon each other and necessarily form a hydrogen molecule. It took a lot of time and many opportunities for a hydrogen molecule and oxygen atom to chance upon each other and necessarily form water. Perhaps inevitably, but not necessarily, there is life, humans, and .... To insist on necessity or design limits God and leads to a theology (and perhaps a theodicy) that Coyne is not comfortable with. Thought it was interesting. Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 As the Zen master said to Joseph Campbell "We dont't have a theology, we don't have an ideology. We just dance." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted May 16, 2011 Author Share Posted May 16, 2011 Used selections of this video in class tonight on Evolutionary Christianity. Coyne asks, and does not answer: It seems that emergence is a good way of thinking of how all things came to be in the universe. Could the spiritual dimension of the human being have emerged also in this continuous evolution of the universe? After class found this Of course there are no definite answers and Keltner is selling a book. Spirituality is closely associated with sympathy and compassion. Karen Armstrong gets a nod; Dawkins a knock. Listen particularly to Chapters 6, 15, 18, 29, Does Darwin Illuminate Spirituality? I was startled when a participant in my class used the word "soul." It seems easy to ask whether the spiritual dimension of humanity is evolving but to ask "Did the soul evolve?" seems an entirely different question. spirituality feels like an open, receptive attitude, "soul" feels like a quality or element. Just thinking Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 In Jungian terminololgy, "soul" refers to the whole of "personality", both static and dynamic, process and outcome, conscious and unconscious. Here, "static" is taken to mean slowly changing over time as humans evolve, so slow as to be confused with "unchanging". As for emergentism, I agree with John Searle, that consciousness is an emergent property constrained by its biological underpinning. Thus consciousness would slowly change over time. In Whitehead we find a view of G_d that includes emergentism. G_d, being conscious, must also change. This is how Jung saw it in his "Answer to Job". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted May 16, 2011 Author Share Posted May 16, 2011 Minsocal, What a blessing. Thanks for your response. In Jungian terminology, "soul" refers to the whole of "personality", both static and dynamic, process and outcome, conscious and unconscious. Here, "static" is taken to mean slowly changing over time as humans evolve... There is still so much I haven't read or thought but I really need to just sit on bench or dig in a garden rocked by the "Goddess in the gentle arms of Eden." (Dave Carter) Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 Minsocal, What a blessing. Thanks for your response. There is still so much I haven't read or thought but I really need to just sit on bench or dig in a garden rocked by the "Goddess in the gentle arms of Eden." (Dave Carter) Dutch It is in the exchange that we we meet ... and dance. Odd, I suppose, but gardening has been what I have focused on these past few weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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