Grand Canyon Revies, Part 2

Until we appreciate what God has revealed in the last 200 years about how everything was actually created and why death at all levels is necessary—until we GET that—we can't help but belittle God and trivialize the core concepts of our faith.

For example, you can't possibly know how God created the heavens and Earth if you don't understand supernovas. You can't know how God created soil, lakes, oceans, and mountains if you don't understand glaciers and plate tectonics. And only by understanding extinctions and why they're essential for the emergence of complex life could we learn how God created us.

Moses, King David, Jesus, and the Apostle Paul couldn't have possibly known how God created everything. Prior to 200 years ago, mythic beliefs were as good as you could get. A thousand Einsteins living a thousand years ago—or even just a few hundred years ago—couldn't have known about extinctions, evolution, glaciers, plate tectonics, and supernovas. We needed telescopes, microscopes, and the scientific method before God could reveal those things.

* * * 

Science reveals more of "God's ways", "God's word", and "God's will" for today than the biblical writers could have ever hoped to. And if any of them were alive today they'd be the first to shout "Amen!"

Darwin didn't kill off God. He gave us the first glimpse of the real Creator behind and beyond all the world's mythic portrayals of the divine.

Claiming that evolution is of the devil and that all the evils of the world can be attributed to Darwin, as many creationists do, is by definition blasphemous. It is labeling as evil that which is actually divine.

When we value what God revealed thousands of years ago over what God is revealing today, we inevitably betray our Creator. We also belittle the gospel, and we risk condemning our children and grandchildren to a literal hell on Earth.

Also see: Grand Canyon Revies, Part 1: Christians

Grand Canyon Revies, Part 1: Christians

Two weeks ago Connie and I rafted 300 miles down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon with Genie Scott, Exectutive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and 23 others, including a young geologist and gifted evolutionary storyteller, Dr. Alan "Gish" Gislick.  What a stunning experience!

While in the Grand Canyon, I naturally met God—that is, I had a deeply inspiring and truly transforming experience of Reality.  A number of "revies" (revelations/insights) came to me regarding the message I'm to preach in the days, weeks, and months to come.  Bottom line: I interpreted Reality/God saying to me: "Be bolder, Michael, much bolder, especially regarding how you speak about the costs (individually and collectively) of not having a meaningful science-based worldview and the benefits of celebrating the epic of evolution as our common creation story.  There's too much at stake not to be bold."

Because I speak to wildly diverse groups - from devoutly religious audiences of many different kinds, to nonreligious and occasionally even anti-religious groups - I generally tailor my message, at least a little, for each audience.

Here's the main thing I feel called to say to my fellow Christians:

Until we come to appreciate what God has revealed over the past 200 years about how everything was actually created, and why death at all levels is essential to the creative process, it's practically impossible not to trivialize core religious concepts such as God's ways, God's word, and God's will.  More, when we value ancient mythic revelations over current measurable revelations, we inevitably betray God, belittle the gospel, and risk condemning our grandchildren to a literal hell on Earth.

I elaborate on this in my next post.

Reality: God's Secular Name

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away." —Philip K. Dick

For all of human history, cultures have created gods, and stories about them, to explain the powerful natural forces that were beyond our control, comprehension, and often ability to cope. For millennia "God" has been little more than an catch-all cosmic concept for everything from thunder bolts to comet trails.

But as science began to show us what really caused natural phenomenon, bit by bit, God faded into the distance, and our supernatural notions became irrelevant or trivial. Real answers to ancient mysteries emerged, and we were left with old stories that didn't quite make sense or ring true in any deep, this-world, realistic way. Until recently...

In the last decade a new way of experiencing God has emerged from within religious traditions around the world, grounded in our best scientific understandings of physical, biological, and cultural evolution. Millions of religious folk have moved from merely thinking about God as some unnatural, otherworldly entity to experiencing God as natural everyday reality filled with awe and mystery—no religion required. It's one of the reasons why so many people polled say they are "spiritual" but not "religious."

For evolutionaries, God is no less than a sacred proper name—a meaningful personificaiton—of ultimate reality, seen and unseen. God is the "Abba" or cosmic father that Jesus knew he was one with and we were all children of. God is the rainbow we can see with the naked eye and the infrared light we can't see. God is the fabric of reality, the very matter and energy of which we are made and the empty space that allows it all to be.  As I discuss briefly in Chapter 6 of Thank God for Evolution:

God is the Mystery at the Center of our amazement that the Universe is here at all, that it is what it is, and that it is always becoming, yet always somehow whole.

God is the Mystery at the Heart of consciousness, conscience, compassion, and all the other forms of co-creative, co-incarnational responsiveness of life to life.

God is the Mysterious Omni-Creative Power through which the Universe is and ever becomes more intricately and wondrously fulfilled through the interactions of all its parts (each of which contains a spark of the Whole).

Science is now how we seek truth about the nature of reality, of which we are an inseparable part. Anything short of serious group inquiry into the nature of reality is nothing more than someone just sitting around thinking about God.

Those who speak on behalf of reality are the true prophets of our age, whether they be religious, nonreligous, or even anti-religious. I'll say more about this in future blog posts.

"Science is, at least in part, informed worship." —Carl Sagan

ALSO SEE:

The Debate Over God's Existence
Christian Naturalism
God as a Personification of Undeniable Reality

Sex Scandals and Instincts: It's Your Biology, Stupid!

 UPDATE: Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow riffed on this topic in their half-hour weekly podcast on 1 September 2009.  You can listen to that episode online, "Evolution and Infidelity" PODCAST, or subscribe to the free RSS feed.

 We are losing our political leaders and will continue to lose them until we come to terms with our basic biology.

Leaders today are no more susceptible to violations of marital vows than were leaders of the past. But in this era of tabloids and texting, sexual scandals have become epidemic.

Every political victory puts the winner in a position not only of privilege and responsibility but also of sacrifice. Just as voters would be wise to withhold their vote from any candidate who lacks a basic understanding of the economy, so should we be wary of electing any man who is ignorant of his biological instincts.

Foremost, he must know about testosterone—what testosterone does and how a rise in status elevates this hormone and thus intensifies one’s sex drive and willingness to take risks.

We can assume that Governors Sanford and Spitzer both knew that testosterone is the sex hormone. We can also assume that Senators Ensign, Edwards, and Craig knew that the more testosterone one has, the more insistent the sex drive. What most politicians don’t know, however, are 5 scientific discoveries that provide crucial perspective.