Darwin Didn't Kill God, He REALized God
Darwin didn’t kill God. To the contrary, he and Alfred Russel Wallace offered the first glimpse of the real creator behind and beyond the world’s myriad mythic portrayals of the divine.
The concepts of theism and atheism came into use long before we had an evidential understanding of how the world, in fact, came into being, and before we learned that the Universe itself is creative. Given what we now know about big history (the 14-billion-year epic of evolution), the theist-atheist dichotomy no longer makes sense. Both presuppose a trivial, unnatural God and a Cosmos that is not itself divinely creative. Thus, I am neither a theist, nor an atheist; I'm an evidentialist, an emergentist—a religious naturalist. (In my book I introduce the bridge-building term "creatheist", which can be pronounced "cree-uh-theist" or "cree-atheist").
An evidential approach starts with the fact that our brains are hardwired for relationships. An emergentist approach arises from the recognition that we evolved—and so have our ways of thinking and speaking about reality. Not only are we programmed for empathy and compassion toward those we identify as our "in-group", we also attribute agency to non-animate, non-conscious realities all the time. (Think of Tom Hanks and "Wilson," the soccer ball, in the movie Cast Away.) It’s what our brains do naturally, instinctually. People in every culture have relationalized or personified their world—especially those forces and aspects of their world that were obviously more powerful than they were. We know of no culture in the world that has not personified reality as a whole or certain significant aspects of reality.
"God" is a personification, not a person. If we miss this, we miss everything.
(Given the fact that most religious people do not realize this, however, the New Atheists can hardly be faulted for failing to appreciate it as well.)
Evidence from a wide range of disciplines, from cognitive neuroscience to anthropology to cross-cultural study of the world’s myths and religions, all support the claim that God is a divine personification, not a person. More, there is no counter-evidence. (This fact alone makes sense of the hundreds of competing stories around the world with respect to what God supposedly said or did.) "God" is a mythic name for Reality in all it's sublime fullness. Any so-called God that is imagined as less than this (it's impossible to be more than this) is unworthy of our devotion and deserves to be mocked, as the New Atheists do so brilliantly. (See here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
Contrary to the picture painted in the Bible and Qur'an, God is not a supernatural terrorist ("Do/believe as I say or you will be tortured forever.") Whenever any story, any culture, or any scriptural passage claims "God said this" or "God did that," what follows is always, necessarily, an interpretation. It's an interpretation of what some person or group of people thought or felt or sensed or wished reality was saying or doing, and almost always as justification after the fact or to make a theological point. Such subjectively meaningful claims are never objective, measurable truth. In other words, had CNN or ABC News been there to record the moment of "divine revelation," there would have been nothing out of the ordinary (nothing miraculous) to report on the evening news—nothing other than what was coming out of someone's mouth, or pen, or whatever folks wrote with back then. If we fail to grasp this, not only will we trivialize the divine but, more tragically still, we will surely miss what God (reality) is saying and doing today.
Ours is a time of space telescopes, electron microscopes, supercomputers, and the worldwide web. It is also a time of smart bombs, collapsing economies, and exploding oil platforms. This is not a time for parsing the lessons given to a few goatherds, tentmakers, and camel drivers.
In the 21st century, our most dependable guidance are facts interpreted meaningfully. Historical, scientific, and cross-cultural evidence is the main way that reality (God) is communicating to humanity today. Recognizing and celebrating this will transform religion and culture. Failing to do so will lead to our demise.
We're all in this together. So let's roll up our sleeves and get to it. There's lots of good work to be done!
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ALSO SEE:
The Salvation of Religion: From Beliefs to Knowledge
Religion Is About Right Relationship With Reality, Not the Supernatural
Evolutionary Spirituality: Coming Home to Reality
God Is a Divine Personification, Not a Person
Thank God for the New Atheists
Supernatural Is Unnatural Is Uninspiring (When You Think About It) - blog post
Supernatural Is Unnatural Is Uninspiring (When You Think About It) - podcast
"What Reality in Human Experience Do We Point to with the Word, 'God'?", a pdf of a short essay by evolutionary theologian and bioregionalist, Gene Marshall. This chapter from one of Gene's books is foundational to an evidential understanding of the divine. (The pdf shows up sideways, so you'll need to open it with Adobe Reader and, under the "View" menu, rotate it clockwise. Otherwise you'll need to print it out. It's only 10 pages and well worth it!)
Biblical accounts support each other
"Such subjectively meaningful claims are never objective, measurable truth. In other words, had CNN or ABC News been there to record the moment of "divine revelation," there would have been nothing out of the ordinary (nothing miraculous) to report on the evening news—nothing other than what was coming out of someone's mouth, or pen, or whatever folks wrote with back then."
There would have been nothing miraculous to report? I agree they would have had nothing miraculous to report but that does not necessarily mean that there was nothing miraculous occuring. In my opinion, naturalism has dominated "objective" media outlets for decades. This is mostly due to the fact that naturalism gets great ratings because a majority of Americans have been subjected to an endless onslaught of naturalism from the day they enter school. Think about it. As five and six year olds you begin to gain exposure to naturalism from the education system. By the time you reach puberty you are taught that the evolutionary theory is scientific fact. In reality naturalism hangs its hat on Darwinian evolution which takes as much faith to belief as creation. If one were to be truly honest and "objective" they would at least teach both creation and evolution as theories. When you take a step back they both ultimately require faith because neither can offer "empirical evidence" which settles the issue once and for all. I would argue that as we progress scientifically we are finding more evidence for creation than evolution daily. So to argue that there would be nothing miraculous to report does not necessarily negate the fact that something miraculous did not happen. Case in point: A skilled pilot lands an airplane on the Hudson and no one is killed. You could try to say that a miracle did not happen and give the pilot all the credit. However, those aboard the plane would probably say that it was nothing short of a miracle that they are alive today.
One must be careful when trying to explain away miracles because they happen everyday.
We must feel God in any point
We must feel God in any point of our lives.Right now that we are in the midst of crisis,more likely we should have a strong faith in Him.Many want to divest their debt while the economy is so bad. Getting a better interest rate thanks to mortgage loan modification is not a bad way to go, and some people looked to get some instant money with a second mortgage to pay off other debts. Strategies began to backfire after the market tanked. True debt settlement relief may be harder than you think, and you have to be very careful about who you contract to help you.