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Part 145: Summary Three:
March 14, 2005:
I can continue my theme about our ethics and spirituality by looking at what we know, what we can surmise, and what we can speculate on, if anything. While doing that, it is well to realize that anecdotes are not evidence. Too often we find theologians and even alleged scientists attempting to make their case by presenting anecdotes as though they were proof of something. A person having a vision of Christ is not proof of the existence of Jesus or of God. Likewise, a few good guesses are not proof of extra sensory perception (ESP). So let us try to remain objective as we attempt to understand our spirituality.
I will begin by looking at some things I prefer to call inexplicable events in the evolution of our universe. For that, let me begin with what we think of as the beginning, the so called Big Bang! What we really know and all that we know is the universe seems to be expanding very rapidly. What we surmise from that is some big wad of something exploded long ago. The time estimates range from 10 to 20 billion years. We do not know that, we surmise it. It is our best guess given the evidence, but it is a guess. What we have is the notion of some kind of inexplicable event out of which came our universe. That is the first inexplicable event.
The second inexplicable event is the occurrence of life itself. Sometime long ago life appeared, apparently out of inanimate matter. We don't know when it happened or how it happened. Again we surmise it from the evidence we have. Our scientists tell us the first evidence they have is of primitive life forms on earth about 500 million years ago. We find no evidence of life prior to that time. Hence, we surmise that life occurred without precedent back then.
Another inexplicable event was the development of consciousness in man. What we know is man is an animal who is conscious of his own thoughts. He can observe himself thinking which gives him the ability to plan. So far as we know, man is the only animal with that capacity. Somehow, man evolved from and unconscious animal into a conscious animal. Again we do not know when or how this came about. All we know for sure is that man is conscious.
We could also make a case for a fourth inexplicable event in what we call the Golden Age of Greece. Somehow, for some reason, man turned away from superstition for his understanding of nature and embraced reason and logic. Until then, primitive superstitious notions of nature and god dominated man's cultures with priest kings running the show. In Greece, something profound happened and the foundations of true science were established. Again, we know it happened, but we don't know why or how.
Since then, with some notable setbacks in the Dark Ages, science has continued to develop. Most obvious in this development are the physical sciences. Later, beginning with Freud and others, man has begun to develop a science of psychology. Although the practitioners may pretend otherwise, this science is in its infancy. At least we can hope it will get more definitive with time. Right now, the track record is not good. However, there have been some interesting investigations and speculations.
One very notable investigator was Carl Jung. He was the man who took Freud's notions of the human unconscious to another level. In so doing, he developed a theory of a collective unconscious in man. It seems, from Jung's anecdotal evidence, that man has some kind of a racial or unconscious memory. This allows some kind of communication to occur between people. We must be very careful with this, because it is based on observations and reports of unrepeatable phenomena, not scientific evidence. I suspect it would be possible to follow up on these theories with some kind of scientific experiments, but it is yet to be done. For now, we have a theory of a collective, or racial unconscious and that is all we have. There is no hard evidence.
Nonetheless, let me speculate from what we have toward what may be possible. This is speculation, but it is informed speculation not barroom guesses. I hope what I speculate can help guide us in our quest for a more reliable spiritual grounding on which to base our ethics. I hope to generate a dynamic theory of human evolution and spirituality that we can build on and modify as we advance into the future. What I do not want to create is another untenable rigid theology which will eventually cause its own demise as it begs the ridicule of thoughtful humans.
First I want to expand on what we know about the occurrence of life. I would like to propose the possibility of a force in the universe that I will call a life force. How it came about and what it is I cannot even speculate, but I can offer some of the properties of this force if it does exist. The most important thing would be that it causes life to occur out of inanimate matter. The second property is that it has a direction toward producing higher and more complex life forms. This notion would imply that the life force is what drives evolution.
Following the line of speculation we can place man as the most advanced product to date of the actions of the life force. Suppose this life force is an ongoing energy field that permeates the universe, much like magnetism or gravity. Another possibility is the life force is a manifestation of the interaction between two of the known energy fields just as light is a manifestation in the electromagnetic spectrum. Either way, it might go something like this. Man is born out of the life force, lives a separate existence for a time and then returns to the life force. It is not necessary to pretend any more than that. We need not claim to any special knowledge of this life force if it exists. We know than man is born and eventually dies. Anything outside of that must be speculation, not divine revelation or law.
Now let me offer another complementary line of speculation of human consciousness. Assuming man has evolved from unconsciousness into consciousness, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that evolution will not continue. Quite the contrary, we are fully justified in assuming it will continue. From Homo Habilis to Homo Sapiens may seem like a heck of a long time for so little gain, but on the cosmic time scale is it just an eye blink. We can consider human evolution to be in its infancy at this time.
If we continue to evolve in consciousness we may indeed become godlike at some future time. Right now, we can consider man to be on a consciousness continuum from inanimate matter to some kind of godlike state. Individuals may be slightly more or less evolved on that continuum, but we occupy a range. We all have a long ways to go to reach a godlike state. I would prefer to call this evolved state the state of God Awareness.
Now the third line of speculation in this game must bring in the idea of a collective unconscious. There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence and no hard evidence in this area. So, all we can do is speculate. My speculation at this time is we are all connected together through some kind of racial unconscious. I believe this is how we get the insights of life, the ah-ha's that blow our minds sometimes. I think it is also how primitive minded people got the notion of God. I think that notion is unnecessary.
It is not necessary to jump to any conclusions about magical creatures to try to get a handle on this unconscious connection. We can just accept it for what it is, believe it happens or not, and operate accordingly. If it is real, it could explain a great number of the experiences many of us have. It could even explain ESP. In all of this, it is not necessary to assign special properties or to build some kind of magical theology around the experiences.
What we can get out of all of this is a direction for man. We have evolved and we may assume we will continue to evolve. We can also assume a goal of a godlike state that I call God Awareness. Our obvious personal goal should then be to facilitate our growth toward that goal. We should be trying to raise our level on the consciousness continuum. As we do that, we can continue to attempt to understand how the life force and the collective unconscious influence our evolution. My current thought is, when we become fully conscious the unconscious will be an integral part of us and not separate.
For now, it should be enough for us to have a direction and
a goal. We should not need any magical creatures or any eternal
life pacifiers. We should be able to get out of bed in the morning
without that nonsense. We should be able to go about the business
of raising our own consciousness and building a community that
will support that kind of growth for everyone.
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