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Carter,
Is not Earth dust the same as Star dust? Let's not limit human evolution to planet earth. We are planetary and cosmic beings moving forward through evolution.

Trish~~

The complexity book looks more interesting to me, but I can see the need for Dowd's book.

The point is well taken that the battle of religion vs evolution has become polarized, and the extreme interpretations of each side seem over done, garish, and incomplete.

We are animals and we understand our universe according to our nature.

For me, the height of arrogance is to assume that humans can know everything about the universe, or that we have even experienced more than a fraction of it's dimensions and possibilities.

Proclaiming that humans are the pinnacle or peak of evolution pretty much throws us back to the days of believing the the earth is the center of the universe.

We are a particular type of organism that has evolved in a very specific environmental and dimensional context, and perhaps we are unique in some ways because of that. But so are all other organisms.

According to the nature of our bodies, our brains and our ability to understand, we know ourselves and our world. So does a cat or a dog know their existence according to their capabilities and their ability to comprehend their world, in the way they have evolved their senses and brains to do so.

The jury is still out on the big questions, and likely will be for the next millions or billions of years.

That said, anything that opens up the discussions, breaks society out of locked-down polarized viewpoints, and helps our understanding grow is a good thing.

That is why I am a mystic. Because to me, the big questions are mysteries, and exploring them increases the joy and fulfillment I derive from my existence.

Opting out for easy answers shuts down that exploration. We should always be open to new perspectives and new ideas that we can test out against the realities of our existence.

Most of them will, sooner or later, have to be discarded. But we grow and become greater beings in that process.

By the way, here's a kind of interesting thread along these lines from over at the ScienceBlogs:

Old Light
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/06/old_light.php

Check the comments where some posters see evidence of God in the cosmos, others state it is not needed, some feel depressed by knowing we are small compared to the vastness of the universe, and some find that same idea liberating. Quite an interesting mix, all in all...

Thank God for giving us the penetrative superforce of the big bang which causes mutations in the universe including humanity at myriad levels on which then evolution acts in terms of darwinian theories.

Harb

Dear Carter,

The library of this new age is getting fuller and fuller :)

You are not the only magazine online on the Internet. There are many and the process of the growing consciousness is seen in the many similarities occurring regularly on both sides of the Paradox (scientific/spiritual). They are growing towards each other no matter what books we write or what efforts we make, because That is evolution.

The moment we are born we are all on our way backwards again to where we came from but the road seems to go forward. It is beautiful to observe that our telescopes indeed lead us more and more towards that goal. So do all the symbols left to us by ancient civilizations, so do all the cultural expressions. In fact everything around us has a core, a central sacred place.

Life is a labyrinth that always leads us back to the centre. And although we still are, for a large part, believing that a labyrinth is a maze with dead end streets, we are always on our way forwards towards the centre we came from, always arriving in the middle, no matter what. Always spiralling forward, like a meandering river through a landscape, leftwards, rightwards, ultimately flowing into the sea.

The road ahead is empty, I know, with miles of the unknown, what ever seems to be our destination, take life the way it comes, take life the way it goes. We are guided by the flow of life and evolution. Nature knows because the Central Sun is her guide :).

Good luck with your interviews and articles!

Mieke

PZ Myers of Pharyngula (ScienceBlogs) does an excellent review of Dowd's book from July, 2007:

"Thank God for Evolution!"

Why me, O Lord, why me?

One of the more recent books sent to me is "Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World" by Michael Dowd. I have read it, and I'm feeling biblical.

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?"
Psalm 22:1

I am so not the right person to review this book—it's like asking Satan to review The Secret. The two aren't even on the same wavelength, and the discombobulated reviewer is going to sit there wondering whether this thing serves his ends or not, but mainly he's going to be confused and find it incomprehensible. Michael Dowd is an evangelical pentacostal preacher and he loves evolution. His purpose in writing this book is to convince his fellow Christians that they can serve Jesus by rejoicing in the wonders of biology. The whole idea makes my head hurt.

I can't just trash the whole thing, though. There are some commendable aspects that I have to acknowledge, even while thinking the whole premise is wrong.

First of all, Dowd is just so danged happy about evolution. This is tent revival biology: not so much concern about the facts and details, but a lot of whoopin' and stompin' and hallelujahs and yee-haws, all for the idea of billions of years of the Creation. It's charming, at first, but also a little wearing, and it's not something to encourage questioning.

For another, Dowd is definitely sincere. There's another book with a similar intent, E.O. Wilson's "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth", which is written to persuade evangelical Christians that biodiversity is compatible with religion and that good people of faith must work together to preserve our world. While I'm entirely in agreement with Wilson's hope, what put me off that book is that it's written by an unbeliever respectfully telling a believer what they should do, and I couldn't help but wonder if his target audience would find the book a bit phony and condescending. "Thank God for Evolution", however, is written by a fervent believer to other believers (again, I am not the target audience), and I think has to ring more truly in the minds of those believers. Where Wilson tried to appeal to the reason of the faithful in the cadences of his Southern Baptist upbringing, Dowd is making an appeal to the emotions of the more modern evangelical movement. He's preaching a kind of evolutionary spirituality.

It's an approach that I don't particularly care for, and that I think subverts the science. The message is too often that we shouldn't accept the conclusions drawn from evidence because they are verifiable, testable, objective pieces of reality, but because they will make you feel better, because they will justify your life, and because they glorify God. It's all backwards; God and Christianity are assumed and unquestioned, and what the reader is asked to do is find the right rationalization to reconcile evolution with Jesus. This might be the right approach to take with people who will never, ever question the righteousness of the Lord, but to us post-theistic folks, it's a little silly. Especially when it's drawn out over 390 pages in an unrelentingly enthusiastic book.

At the same time that Dowd is appealing to his fellow believers, though, it's also clear that he is the product of the frantic explosion of American Christian sects, where so many profess the unity of belief in the divinity of Jesus but have little else in common. There is a commonality of methods and ritual and rationale—at least to me, who can scarcely tell a Baptist from a Sunni Muslem—but at the same time, each individual seems to be an idiosyncratic splinter with amorphous jell-o for a creed. For example…

__________________________________________________
"Occasionally, someone who has heard me speak asks in frustration, "What are you, anyway? A theist? Atheist? Pantheist? I can't tell what you are!" My standard response goes something like this: "I'm all of those—and none of them. Actually my wife [the science writer Connie Barlow] and I had to coin our own term. I'm a creatheist (cree-uh-THEIST) and my wife, well, she's a creatheist (cree-ATHEIST). We spell it the same way. We mean the same thing. We just pronounce it differently." This response almost always evokes smiles or laughter.

Here is why this new word can bridge the theist-atheist divide: One need not believe in anything in order to be a creatheist. It's not a belief system. It is based on what we know, not what we believe. I call creatheism a "meta-religious scientific worldview" and posit the following three points as a core to its understanding.

1. The Whole is creative in a nested, emergent sense.
2. Humanity is now an integral and increasingly conscious part of this process.
3. There are many legitimate ways to interpret and speak about Ultimate Reality."
__________________________________________________

Sorry to say, that does not bridge this atheist's separation from theistic belief—it's glib and superficial, and the three points are awfully New Agey and fuzzy. You won't be catching me calling myself a creatheist, however it's pronounced.

Actually, the way Dowd attempts to unite the various splinters of belief is by this process of redefinition. God is just our experiential Reality, not necessarily an intelligent anthropoid magic maguffin … although it's OK if you feel like personifying him, too. But whatever this god-thing is, it is the reason for reveling in your joy at evolution.

The book is a fascinating read in some ways, as a glimpse of a deeply alien culture. I just can't get much of it, myself. For instance, this is the first pro-evolution book I've ever read that advocates speaking in tongues.

__________________________________________________
"Speaking in tongues has been a significant part of my spiritual practice for half my life. Speaking in tongues has its detractors, but there are sound evolutionary reasons for its effectiveness. The following practice will REALize the act of speaking in tongues, because it doesn't require you to believe in anything. It's an experience available to anyone who tries it.

How I speak in tongues is simple. I pretend I can speak a foreign language; vocalizing nonsensical sounds in a gentle, melodic, or rhythmic way. I encourage you to try it, right now. Do it in whatever way comes naturally, for a few minutes or longer, until it becomes effortless. Now speak in tongues again, this time inaudibly, though perhaps still moving your lips. Then continue this "speech" without moving your lips; have it happen just internally. Whichever form suits you best, you should notice immediately that your awareness expands. You are more aware of what you see and hear and feel—without trying.

…

Speaking in tongues is immersion in the holiness of this moment, this time and place. I often do it intentionally, to quiet my mind while driving, for example."
__________________________________________________

I'm afraid I didn't try the technique myself — I didn't see the virtue in it. Anyone out there who wants to, though, report back and tell us how well it worked. I did use my imagination to conjure up an amusing picture of a speaker at a biology conference with his eyes rolled back and chanting nonsense syllables in front of his powerpoint slides (which, in some cases isn't that much of a stretch of the imagination), and also wondered with some horror about how many of the drivers on the road are cruising down the interstate at 70mph blissed out on "ba na shu ra mo bal ka…".

Bottom line: this is not a book for me, and it's probably not a book for most of the readers here. It's irritating, and it takes for granted a whole set of incredible premises that I find objectionable. It's approach is glib and superficial on the biology side.

On the other hand, if you've got a devout Aunt Tillie who is not going to ever question her faith and is going to cut you out of her will because your acceptance of scientific fact means you're going to hell, go ahead, send her a copy. It translates biology entirely into the terms of an evangelical faith-head, and might reconcile her to your ideas. I can also imagine this book finding an audience with the Oprah crowd — there's nothing here to contradict evangelical Christianity, and instead it twists evolution (aargh, it burns) to match the expectations of the religious. That's why I'm going to reject it altogether, but it might just appeal to those who dread getting their science straight.

Aloha Carter

I don't know if you have read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. It is a story of evolution told by a gorilla. He shares the Bible was war propaganda for its children. There is a new movie out Bloodline that explains Jesus didn't die on the cross. He lived his life out married with children in France and his dna is now everyone's dna. The importance of this information is he is just was a prophet like the muslims have said. There are two hierarchies religion and medicine.

It is to say, "No" to the hierarchies and you can do that by supporting Rick Simpson's message that hemp oil with thc... a plant that can't be patten has the healing properties to cure cancer and other diseases. When you think of medical marijuana you have to reframe your thought process of not smoking (like the chemical pills of morphine and other pain killers that kill the neurons of the hippocampus), but digesting the oil from the hemp with thc for the medicinal properties that support creating new neuron tracks within the brain while healing the affected area of the body. To check out Rick Simpson site on the cure for cancer, just click my name. To heal from your own yard, and kitchen is liberation from a demoralizing culture that tells us it is us that creates cancer where in Ed Haslem;s book Dr. Mary's Moneky, he shares we were vaccinated with strains of cancer with the polio vaccine. They grew the vaccine on the kidney's of monkeys in their hurry to create a vaccine.. it was a mistake, but then biological warfare.. aids. the dance continues. They couldn't tell the masses that they inoculated the truth to correct the mistake. Why have we been so afraid of death?

As Deepak Chopra expains time is just the movement of thought and it is what separates you and I but if we remove it we have Love. love patty

Aloha Patty
I just got my copy of Ishmael back from a friend who borrowed it last year. I can't wait to read it again.
Did you know there are four books in the series?

Life for me has never been the same after seeing it through the eyes of a gorilla.

science and spirituality

I think they need relationship therapy. They know they want to get together, spirituality coyly throwing glances at science, science puffing up like some kinda bird in a ritual dance. Yo, if they could just put aside their differences and get along, I think that they could help us move forward in this human experience.

But alas they spend more energy fighting with each other than working together. So are the days of our lives.

peace comes from peace

derek

Aloha dooleman

I am so grateful you have enjoyed Ishmael. I have read most of Daniel Quinn's other books, but I didn't find anything that really felt like Ishmael. He is a forever teacher. When you align with nature you become aligned.

If you haven't checked out Rick Simpson Run for the Cure, be sure to.. for to be able to heal ourselves puts us in the garden with Ishmael presenting the double sign: "Would there be man without gorillia? or Would there be gorillia without man?" And I loved when he talked about the tourist going to lunch with one of the residents of the place he was visiting:) Mahalo for joining in the wonderful memories of Ishmael.

love patty

Hey Carter, here advertising your wares in the mind market. Like you said it is a “great story” but that is all it is, a story, not reality.

This is a crock of shi..aving crème, another fictional story people make up, that will not lead to wake up. A fictional assist for other fictions maintained, there was no biological evolution. There is only consciousness evolution, and the evolution of story, yours. What we can see is biological adaptation not biological evolution. All the perfect design already exists for all forms of play and experience.

Looking at genomes we can see that DNA has never evolved, a premise that I the one alone (all one) have put forth. There is (not was) a master blueprint from which all form, creatures come; it is such that it is because the math works.

There is only evolution of consciousness not biology; here we find only adaption and morphing of the “IS” from one form into another.

Flies happen as a bacterial transport system, and mosquitoes for species wide DNA switch flipping upgrades, morphing instructions.

Why is it that this one speaks this and others do not? Because they know not for they are not “it”.

The question is asked what is enlightenment?

I AM.

And you are not

Because if you were

You would be writing this, or know that it was you writing.

I found my self not knowing

so I try to explain to my self

so that all of me will know I AM all that!

Some are just characters, the actor having forgotten, you have no reality except in the story, when the finite story ends so does your character, if it doesn't get written out the script first when your character no longer serves a purpose. There are those actors that awaken to the never ending story, and they can bring their character to the infinite play.

Are you an author or a reader?

A programmer or a program?

Are you a knowing actor or one that has become lost in their character?

I AM that which is beyond the story, are you?

I AM the Great Author

I AM IS behind everything.

I AM the Mysterious Force.

I AM with gratitude though; for you the audience, for how else would I measure my performance?

One knows the scientific secret of immortality, the preservation and transmission of information using biological storage only your ego can stand between. Those are the natural game rules.

Leave the realm of finite games and join in the infinite game of the immortals, there can only be one, do the math.

I LOVE ALL THE CHARACTERS in the play.

The Universe is for entertainment purposes only and is not to be taken seriously, or to be used in a professional capacity.

Revisiting here to put my two cents on Stuart Kaufman.

"Dowd’s new book is one of many signs, as is complexity theorist Stuart Kaufmann’s new book I highly recommend both of them.

While both of these books are starting on the science side of the fence and seeking integration from that context, we also need to see serious new evolutionary visions that begin on the spiritual side of the fence and move toward a greater integration."

To talk about Dowd's book and Kaufmann's book in the same breath is an insult to the later. Dowd's book, doesn't start from the science-side of the fence, like Kaufman's book does. The former starts on the religious-side and tries to justify itself using science.

Just checked the Amazon review of Reinventing the Sacred. The reviewers are reading too much into Kaufman. I've always found him reasonable and interesting. And he is an atheist (he's said as much in several of his articles), but he does speak of spirituality in a way that could easily lead a fundie to think he was anti-atheist.

I haven't read Reinventing the Sacred but I did attend one of his book tour lectures last week. He said several times that he does not believe in any kind of supernatural power or deity and that he does not attribute anything to the supernatural. This book is basically an argument against reductionism. The essay "BEYOND REDUCTIONISM: REINVENTING THE SACRED" is the basis for his book. It is a good place for anyone interested in Kaufman's theories.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman06/kauffman06_index.html

He did say that he views this book as his way of reaching out to those who are religious. As a result he comes off as fairly congenial towards religion in general. I think his goal is to get people to abandon their idea of a personal god in favor of either atheism or a hands-off deistic style god. He feels like the best way to do this is to give people something within the bounds of science that they can consider holy/sacred.

I don't think he's gone off the deep end into the woo. He doesn't believe the universe is conscious or anything like that. He just wants to transfer the idea of 'sacredness' from religion to natural phenomena.

Freyja,

Over at Rationally Speaking, Massimo Pigliucci has an excellent post on Stuart Kauffman's new book titled: Another scientist getting silly about religion.

"Here we go again, this time it is Stuart Kauffman’s turn to write silly things about science and religion. Kauffman is a serious and brilliant scientist, best known for his work on complexity theory and its application to evolutionary biology. But he has now joined an increasingly long and embarrassing list of scientists who write really silly things about religion and how it relates to science.

Kauffman’s latest book is entitled Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. It is a view that is bound to fail on a variety of levels, but I think it is instructive to see why. Let’s start with the good news: Kauffman, unlike, say, authors like Paul Davies (author of questionably ambiguous stuff like Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life) or -- worse -- Frank Tipler (author of the downright nonsensical The Physics of Christianity) -- is pretty clear that there is no way to recover any classical version of god, not even the deist one. For Kauffman, for instance, morality emerged out of the biological and cultural evolution of humanity. Still, Kauffman seeks to “find common ground between science and religion so that we might collectively reinvent the sacred.”..."

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/

I think it is very good and I think you all will like it too. Just FYI.