In a recent post entitled Refresh and Restart I introduced the idea of religion as having four aims, considered on the analogy of computer software applications. While every program needs to be compatible with the computer’s deeper operating system, it will also have a specific design objective in what it does – organize data, calculateContinue reading “The Mandala of Four Aims”
Tag Archives: religion
Refresh and Restart
Back in the late 1980s Bill Moyers conducted a long interview with the scholar of world mythology Joseph Campbell, published under the title The Power of Myth. In their conversation Campbell invoked the up-and-coming personal computer as a metaphor for understanding myth and religion. Campbell suggested that we might think of the various religions as differentContinue reading “Refresh and Restart”
A Method of Dialogue, Step One: Preparation
A method is not like a machine, where once you get it going you can step back and leave it alone. This is particularly true when we’re talking about a method of dialogue and community formation. To step back from dialogue is to abort the process and abandon community. Furthermore, dialogue and community simply doContinue reading “A Method of Dialogue, Step One: Preparation”
Dead Certain
Other animals will engage in violent conflict with members of their own species over territory, resources, access to mates, and protecting their young, but only humans kill each other over ideas. We will go so far as to commit suicide in the act of destroying those who don’t agree with us or whose values areContinue reading “Dead Certain”
The Last Delusion
If you ask most people “Who are you?,” after their proper name you’re likely to get a short list of roles they perform in the various social niches of their life. As I use the term, ‘niche’ refers to a particular environment of social interaction where individual members carry identities assigned and scripted by aContinue reading “The Last Delusion”
Science, Spirituality, and The World To Come
I probably spend too much time defending the role of religion in our lives, especially in the opinion of those who identify themselves as nonreligious or atheist. While they tend to define religion as a belief system oriented on the supernatural, driven by superstition, stuck in the past, prone to fanaticism, and utterly irrelevant toContinue reading “Science, Spirituality, and The World To Come”
Diving Deep, Flying High
A lot has happened to get us to this point, where I have written something for you to read and think about. Fourteen or so billion years ago a quantum singularity broke open to release a burst of infinite energy and give birth to our universe. Within seconds this highly unstable state began to collapseContinue reading “Diving Deep, Flying High”
Human Evolution
In a post from long ago entitled Humanism in a New Key, I offered an interpretation of post-theism where the re-absorption of higher virtues formerly projected in the deities of religion opens up a new era in our evolving spirituality as a species. If the idea of an external god is understood in terms ofContinue reading “Human Evolution”
Education, Refocused
Let’s assume that when students say they are in college “to get a job,” they really are answering honestly – and hopefully. But let’s also leave open the possibility that what students are really hoping for is life direction, an opportunity to discover and develop the creative potential they possess and live it out inContinue reading “Education, Refocused”
Spirituality Basics 3: The Liberated Life
As the third in my trilogy of posts on Spirituality Basics, this one will move our focus to the question of what the liberated life looks like. We grappled with the predicament of our human condition as off-center and caught in the delusion of separateness; and then spent some time on salvation as the breakthroughContinue reading “Spirituality Basics 3: The Liberated Life”
Tracts of Revolution 