The quotations on this page will give a quick overview and a taste of the thesis to which the website is dedicated. They have been placed in this order to indicate the connection between new science, new spirituality and a new society.
There was, of course, no "before" before the Big Bang, since time itself came into existence at that point, and the notion that time had a beginning leaves natural science with a fundamental problem. It is at base a problem of identity, since whatever a timeless reality might turn out to be, it certainly is not nature. Hubble's discovery of the galactic redshift has put us on a slippery slope that leads to unnatural science.
That there exists an invisible higher dimensioned reality inaccessible to our senses, a domain as real as our three-dimensioned cosmos, is, an act of faith, but no more so than believing that reality consists of the solid, three dimensional world of commonsense and Cartesian science alike. After all, we know that the apparently empty space around us is filled with radio waves which remain silent and unobserved until we tune into them at the right frequency. Is science trapped in an illusion that res extensa, being all that natural science can handle, is therefore, by false inference, all that can exist. Are scientists and philosophers imprisoned in a Cartesian goldfish bowl?
It needs to be emphasized that myth is not always to be taken as the opposite of truth, or synonymous with falsehood, as some scientists would like to believe. The situation is far more complex than that, indeed science may be said to have its own myths which are to be found in its basic assumptions about the nature of reality. The very ambivalence of the word "myth" enables the radical challenge to science and religion in our time to be avoided, for it enables one to choose between two quite contrary meanings - one positive and mind-enriching, the other negative and mind-restricting.
Scientists tend to dismiss religion as a primitive and childish truth system because its truths are mythical, while, on the other hand, those who are fearful of science, can remain undisturbed by its truth and untouched by its challenge by arguing that all the facts we need for religion are contained in legendary and fictional truth that is inaccessible to scientific analysis.
Biology is inseparable from evolutionary theory, but in its present state is unable to answer two absolutely key questions: how life and consciousness arose from inorganic matter, and how DNA appeared from simple molecules as the coded pattern for life forms. The gene has been shown to be the blueprint for living organisms, but where is the blueprint for the gene to be found?
True religion needs science like instant coffee needs water. Jesus made this point in different terms when he was asked what was the most important religious commandment, and replied, “The greatest commandment is, ‘Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength’.” (Mark 12:30). We do not often reflect on what it means to love with all our mind, but since the greatest triumphs of the mind for three centuries have come from the discipline that we know as science, it would be perverse to think that the findings of science are not relevant to religion in its highest form.
The fact is that science, from physics, chemistry, biology and neurology to cosmology, is revealing such great marvels about creation that it has been called “the new epiphany.” As we learn about the processes of creation, we learn more about the Creating Power, and suddenly comes the realisation that if the new creation story of science is right, we are one with this power, we share our identity with it, we are an extension and manifestation of it. Then science, which so many regard as hostile to religion is seen to be a potential bridge, offering us an unexpected passage from knowing about this power, which Jesus called “Father,” to experiencing it – which is a totally different thing. Properly viewed, science will not destroy religion but redefine it and take it to a higher, and more demanding, level.
. . . . A fact-based and fact-seeking creation story will offer the chance of a unified and truly global understanding of the power that is variously called God, or Allah, or Brahman. The prospect of the human family rising above the different religions which now so tragically divide it may seem like a pipe dream, and even undesirable to those who have a vested interest in the status quo, but it is a vision which cannot fail to inspire the true evolutionist or anyone who yearns for peace between nations.
There has long been disagreement about the historical truth of the Resurrection, but the strongest argument for it in practice is that my parents believed in it, and their parents before them, thousands of saints have done so, and almost all the Christian bishops, priests and ministers of the world still believe that it literally happened. There is thus an immense psychological resistance to examining the evidence against it. In the end, our willingness to consider it, like a juror in a court of law, will depend upon how strongly we feel that truth and honesty are an essential part of religion and, indeed, of spirituality.
. . . . Christian belief is riddled with naïve dishonesties. Does anyone really believe that the earthly body of Jesus continues to exist in a heaven above the earth (and do Catholics really believe that his mother’s body is up there too?). Do they believe in the truth of the gospel accounts of the other resurrections that followed upon that of Jesus, when “many of God’s people arose from sleep, and coming out of their graves after his resurrection they entered the Holy City, where many saw them” (Matt. 27:52). Why believe in one and not the other?
The problem arising from different theologies is far more critical than is generally realised, for under each great foundational myth lies a tacit definition of what it means to be fully human, and this fact has profound social, ethical and psychological repercussions. Unless we are prepared to accept a world of competing religious tribes, we must find a new kind of religious commonality. It need hardly be said that the practical problems of achieving this are immense, but that is no reason for rejecting the challenge.
. . . . Openness in religion is a high risk principle, for the root of the word religion – that which binds – implies fixity, while openness implies continuous development. Even as a principle of growth, it is risky, for seeking without desire to commit oneself can become dilettantism, a kind of spiritual surfing.
. . . . Under the overarching term of panentheism there is a movement building up for the sort of epochal change that is indicated by the term “paradigm shift”. Panentheism may be defined briefly as the belief that God is within everything and everything is within God, but the definition is inadequate and misleading for several reasons, partly because it uses the term “God”, which inevitably brings with it misleading connotations from the past. Panentheism assumes not that God is the “ground of being”, in Tillich’s famous phrase but is “being itself”.
I would prefer to use the term entheism to indicate the emerging new spirituality, and distinguish it from the cool, intellectual position assumed by many modern day panentheists. Entheism, as I would propose, it is a feeling, even though it may arise from the emerging new science, particularly from cosmology. It is the habitual awareness that the divine reality is within everything, not least ourselves, and that we as humans relate to that reality in a unique and marvellous way.
Of all the economic structures which have come into being since the dawn of civilisation none has had such a profound effect upon our species as the emergence of the joint stock company, now evolved into the PLC and TNC …. It is setting an unrecognised and destructive goal for human evolution, for as its aims and amorality become a norm for human activity, profit-making for its own sake becomes a disease which infects us all, a mindset which determines the way in which we view the world and our fellow humans.
For the first time in human history, a global identity is becoming a theoretical possibility, although the route towards it is far from clear. Over two thousand years ago Aristotle asserted that the full human being is an animal that dwells in the city state (zoon politikon). Now we must ask, what is the most appropriate political and economic grouping in our time to enable human potential to be unlocked. Since the unlocking of our hidden potential is the force that drives human evolution, the way in which we approach political theory on a global state is going to be critical.
. . . . Always the increase in population has created social pressure, and brought new kinds of human grouping into existence, from the hunting tribe to the sovereign state. The population explosion in our time is the one over-arching problem which the planet faces today, with no faintest idea of what social change can be made to counter it. The attendant effects are pollution of air, land and water, depletion of material and food resources, mass hunger, starvation, and forced emigration. In a globalising world the nation state is losing its relevance, but any proposal to go beyond it, towards forming a global family must provide an answer to this complex of problems.
The word “nation” comes from the same root as “nativity” - i.e., birth - implying a blood relationship and a group which is bonded “naturally”. The term “nation of states,” by which America described itself in the Constitution, is a noble ideal but a contradiction in terms. It raises the question, how is the natural, almost instinctive, sense of unity of the tribal nation to be created artificially among different cultural groups in order to build a unified political entity? In the context of the Global Family Papers the question will be, “How are individuals from cultural blocs with vastly different world views to acquire a natural and over-riding sense of belonging to a global community?” Whatever the answer, it can only come through a process of education in the widest sense. This must be the core agenda.
If the historical trajectory of human evolution is projected into the future, we may anticipate a higher human type, which may be denoted by the label Homo novus - the new kind of human. This anticipated new subspecies or type will certainly not appear overnight, and in one sense it will not be entirely new, for we can see such higher specimens in history in individuals like Jesus of Nazareth or Gautama Buddha, and many others who could be named. Such individuals, men and women, are like zoological holotypes, the first specimens to be discovered that tell us of previously unknown types or species.