My aim in this post is to offer an understanding of religion that can help us appreciate its importance while providing criteria for constructive criticism. Many today are applauding the decline of religion as a necessary precursor to our postmodern “enlightenment.” Religion is based in superstition, organized around power and privilege, corrupt at the deepestContinue reading “A Case for Healthy Religion”
Tag Archives: spirituality
Radiant Being
Look around and rest your gaze on something nearby. What do you see? A coffee cup. A potted plant. An old paint-peeled wooden fence outside the window. What if I told you that you are mistaken? The things you just named are only concepts – meanings that your mind is putting around what you see.Continue reading “Radiant Being”
Jesus, Forgiveness, and a Brave New World
In my defense of a new humanism, I made the case that Western consciousness shifted into a post-theistic morality with the radical teachings of Jesus. Where the motivation to do what is right had been conditioned by a powerful external incentive – approval, inclusion, divine favor and final salvation (or the opposite if you breakContinue reading “Jesus, Forgiveness, and a Brave New World”
What You (Really) Want
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”
A New Christianity
In “What is Post-Theism?” I explored how Western culture since the ancient Greeks evolved through three creative phases, where an earlier function of god (behind nature, above politics, and ahead of morality) was internalized and transcended by the human being. The revolutions of science (natural philosophy) and democracy in Greece essentially took over for godContinue reading “A New Christianity”
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”
Creative Choice
The creative life is not simply a life without limits, but is more about freely choosing the limits that define your desire. Without definition, the creative desire that Nietzsche called the human spirit splashes out and seeps away, falling short of realization. The other side of it for Nietzsche was the degree in which ourContinue reading “Creative Choice”
The Only Way of Salvation
Religion is an answer to the problem or dilemma that besets our human condition. Throughout its long history, the answer of religion has changed according to the nature of its problem. Earliest religion was focused on the body and a need for the business of society to stay connected to the provident rhythms of nature.Continue reading “The Only Way of Salvation”
The Creative Life
In our exploration of creative change, it is tempting to romanticize creativity into a free-ranging, spontaneous, and artistic-expressive activity that defies limitations. There is something to this, of course. The “creative life” does seem to stand at the far end of a continuum from the “secure life” where everything is safe and comfortably tucked in.Continue reading “The Creative Life”
Soulful Religion
A very long time ago, way back in the dim prehistory of human cultural evolution, “primal religion” functioned to keep our run-away brain connected to the cycles and rhythms of the natural order. At that point, the tribe was still a human group organized around the necessities of sex, territory and nutritional resources. These cyclesContinue reading “Soulful Religion”
Tracts of Revolution 