What Is Truth - Seed Pods?

Seed Pods?

   That is what Richard Dawkins in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, very plainly tells us we are. He writes that we exist to preserve the very essence of human life, our DNA. And, it is not the other way around. We are as the fluffy seed pods of willow trees that catch the wind and make their way through the world with the purpose of their DNA replicating to grow and produce more willow DNA so that the blueprint for willows will continue on into the future.

   It all makes very good sense scientifically. I see the allegory he creates and had found no fault in his presentation of natural selection as the cornerstone of evolution. Some molecular biologists like Behe, however, claim there is a whole lot more going on at the molecular level that does not so neatly follow the scenarios evolutionary biologists set forth.

     I don’t even have a problem with the claim that all life proceeded from a common ancestor (even Behe affirms this). It would seem common sense for God to use a single raw material to fashion the springboard of life. And I can agree with Dawkins that man is not the center of the universe. Perhaps God did create our world as a means to preserve and perpetuate the precious building blocks of life in seed pods. Perhaps we and all life are serving as his storage system to be retrieved at some future point, i.e. the new heaven and the new earth.

   But in the end, I see the seed pod as a symbol of choice. If you choose to be a seed pod and nothing else – and let’s be clear about this for Dawkins and many other scientists and philosophers see man as only biological with a mind that has misfired into consciousness — then you are forfeiting any claim to a spiritual nature. This includes any nonrational attributes such as “love, beauty, truth, grief and meaning.”   These attributes are nonempirical, they cannot be scientifically analyzed. It also means that you forfeit any moral responsibility for what you do on earth for how can a seed pod be held accountable? 

   Which brings me back to the imagery. Jesus tells many stories comparing people who have made choices to be without God to weeds or chaff, or even seeds that have failed to bear fruit. He tells us that they wither and die and will be burned. It strikes me as so ironic that someone like Dawkins who views God as a delusion would champion man as a seed pod.

What Is Truth - Am I "In" or Am I "Out"

A major objection expressed of Christianity is – how can there be only one way to God? 

     Apologetic writings address the question, but objections are raised to Christianity’s claim because adherents of different religions are dedicated and happy and produce great work in the world. You can’t examine major religions without discovering elements of beauty and truth in each. An obvious conclusion would be that faith and religious choice should be open to the believer - that Christianity has no right to claim the only truth. 

     We have to be careful because looking deeper, one can see there are aspects of each religion that single themselves out as being the only truth, or requiring devotion to specific ways of life or tenants that would exclude persons who are of a different faith. It is inaccurate then to only object to Christianity.

     So I spent a great deal of time reading of Taoism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. Buddhism is really a philosophy because it does not believe in a deity which is interesting because the life it calls adherents to live is the most similar to the life Christians are called to exhibit. I also read other philosophies including Platonism, existentialism, and postmodernism. Surely one system would rise above the others. When elements of one conflicted with another, one had to be right and one had to be wrong. They couldn't both be true. I wanted the religion I was raised in to rise to the top, but I was giving all others an opportunity to present their cases. 

     At that point in my life I was reading books about Christianity as a means of comparison, but I had not read the Bible in years. I wanted to believe everything I was taught as a child, but I couldn't pray. Oddly enough however, I still attended church and sang in the choir. Each Sunday we walked passed the alter to be seated, and every Sunday I would see the carved wooden wall-piece that framed the alter with these words carved and painted gold:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

     And every Sunday I’d think – there it is again, either you’re “in” or you’re “out.” And looking over the rows of people I'd think – it must be nice for them, but since I can’t believe like they do, I guess that makes me “out.”

Read the second part of this story, What Is Truth - The Anchor of Our Souls  here

What Is Truth - "Hallowed Place"

Hallowed Place

Step into the stream’s clear pool

Search along gray rock

That will not weather

Beyond sandbanks as they curve

Toward the sycamore, leaning

From spreads of fern

The water pulses

But is not rushing, is not deep

Compressed beneath the lowest root

Laid bare and reaching

Kneel to meet it bubbling forth

Washing over, flowing down

Rest upon the stretch of tree

Through shadowed branches

Daylight broadens vibrantly converging

How must one be in your presence

Who fills every part of me

And does not need me to speak of what's passed

For you were there so I could turn

And know you're here for me

J. Elliott Jackson

What Is Truth - Remember Your Sacred Places

     Let me step aside from my own journey in search of spirit and turn to a woman in her nineties who spoke to a gathering this evening about sacred places. We need to find a spot in our surroundings where we can be alone within our thoughts; even if we are not always by ourselves, it is a place we feel comfortable.

      It could be by a window where the sun filters in across our chair and flowers, or by a stream where branches bend low to meet the water. She was unashamed to talk of things holy, to tell how God’s spirit waits for her to join him in those places, and sits with her , and journeys with her, and holds her up in moments when life is not kind.

      As our speaker’s words drew images and recreated for us the sacred spaces she claimed as a child, a young adult, an elder, I am reminded of my own days under the blossoming apple trees, upon the branches of a willow, the sleeping sofa, the rock by the cool stream waters.

What Is Truth - "The Three of Us"

What is Truth - A Few Ground Rules

Huston Smith writes as a comparative religion scholar. He puts the contemporary tensions of religion and science into perspective. I have included quotes and points from his book, WHY RELIGION MATTERS in blue.

“The downside of Truth is the danger of fanaticism. Because absolutes brook no alternatives, conservatives are tempted to invade their neighbors’ autonomy and try to force Truth down their throats.”

“Liberals face the opposite problem, for the danger that stalks relativism is that it will bottom out into nihilism.”

*But Absolutism and dogmatism are at different axes:

Absolutism relates to belief; dogmatism is a character disorder

*The opposite of absolutism is relativism 

*The opposite of dogmatism is open-mindedness

Absolutism and Relativism are the two poles for a discussion of belief and faith. 

*Spirituality names what people generally consider to be good about religion. Spirituality is a human attribute so it is exempt from the problems of religion.

but

"It is a bad sign when spiritual, an adjective, gets turned into a noun, spirituality, for this has a dog chasing its own tail. Grammatically, spirit is the noun in question, and spiritual its adjective. Spirituality is a neologism that has come into existence because spirit has no referent in science’s world. . .”

Spirit not spirituality then would be the subject for a discussion of belief and faith.

“We generally assume that the findings of science have retired the traditional outlook [that values and knowledge stem from the same source], but that has been our big mistake, for those findings pertain to the physical universe only. . .whereas the metaphysical question is whether that universe is all that exists.”

Is the physical universe all that exists? - the question for a discussion of belief and faith. 

“If science cannot tell us what (if anything) is outside our universe, what can? Nothing definitively, but it would be foolish not to draw on every resource available. 

Inclusively, things are neither as science says they are nor as religion says they are. They are as science, and religion, and philosophy, and art, and common sense, and our deepest intuitions, and our practiced imaginations say they are.”

What Is Truth - Four Beginning Titles

     Here are the four books in my last post I referred to exchanging with a co-worker. The photos link to their source. You can click on them for more information.

The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

Lee Strobel

Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief

Huston Smith

The Art of Loving

Erich Fromm

The Beatitudes for Today

James C. Howell