At the very deepest level life is desire. Because organisms are open systems – not closed and self-sufficient, but dependent on their environments for what they need to survive and prosper – desire is active even at the cellular level. As our focus moves upwards to higher levels of organizational complexity and consciousness, desire becomesContinue reading “What You (Really) Want”
Tag Archives: constructivism
What is Post-theism?
The representation of god in myth and belief has served three key functions over the long course of history: as (1) the hidden agency behind the forces and events of nature, (2) the transcendent legitimation of political authority, and as (3) the advancing ideal of our moral development as a species. In some cases, theseContinue reading “What is Post-theism?”
On the Other Side of Meaning
I know someone whose religion is a collection of curiosities from across the landscape of world traditions. A little of this and a little of that, thrown together in no systematic or reasonable way, but still very personal and meaningful as far as it goes. If you were to ask this individual what it all reallyContinue reading “On the Other Side of Meaning”
The Story of Truth
At this holiday season we have another chance to take a deeper look into story. What is it exactly, this peculiar arrangement of words that conjures up images in our minds, sweeps us away into other times and places, to places that never were nor likely will ever be? Take the story of The Nativity,Continue reading “The Story of Truth”
Just a Little More Reality (Please)
Constructivism is an approach to understanding the world we live in as a product of our own creative intelligence. “World” refers to the habitat of meaning that human beings construct around themselves for security, to support identity, and to provide a sense of purpose to their lives. As a social species, humans are compelled toContinue reading “Just a Little More Reality (Please)”
Human Being
If language had developed along a slightly different track, in addition to speaking of human beings we might today have acquired the habit of referring to “dog beings” and “tree beings,” even “rock beings” and “cup beings.” This fascinating word, being, is mistakenly regarded as a noun when it’s really more a verb: be-ing, theContinue reading “Human Being”
Standpoints in Reality
My “Conversations” with recent philosophers, theologians, and mystics over the past year have helped me reconsider some terms we commonly use in the investigation of what makes us human. The longer history of higher thought has continuously required us to make distinctions in what we had earlier grasped as “one thing.” The words individuum andContinue reading “Standpoints in Reality”
The Time We Have Left
The moment-to-moment phenomenon of experience is difficult to pin down and is probably impossible for us to fully understand, for the paradoxically simple reason that we are always in it. We can’t get the detachment and observational distance to see it objectively. There is no perspective on experience itself since experience is the place whereContinue reading “The Time We Have Left”
The Possible Human
Anderson: “Contemporary civilization without ball games and movies would be as incomprehensible as medieval civilization without the Church. Our social reality is shaped by those myths and structures, our personal lives informed and sometimes inspired by them.” In the early flush of modernity, when the codes of the physical universe were being unlocked right andContinue reading “The Possible Human”
The Responsibility of Thinking Well
Anderson: “The best way to keep an audience from seeing the weakness in any plot is to step up the sense of menace; the maxim of hack screenwriters is that when things get slow you put a bear on the beach.” There is a narrow bandwidth of intelligence where an individual is able to thinkContinue reading “The Responsibility of Thinking Well”
Tracts of Revolution 