Humanity's Rite of Passage

UPDATE: Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow riffed on this topic as the title of their episode of their NEW WEEKLY PODCAST series, "America's Evolutionary Evangelists," launched August 13, 2009.  You can listen to that podcast online, or subscribe to the free RSS feed.

Until recently, answers to life's biggest questions ("How was that mountain or ocean or everything created?" "What's real and what matters most?") and access to life's most cherished and important emotional states (trust when I think about the future, gratitude when I think about the past, inspiration to be in action in the moment no matter what chaos may come my way, comfort in times of sorrow or grief, etc)—for 99% of human history these fundamental benefits (what I call "core bennies") could only be obtained via mythic, dream-like, pre-natural stories. Now, for the first time in human history, we have meaningful answers to life's biggest questions and access to life's most cherished emotional states via measurable knowledge that can unite us rather than mythic beliefs that so often divide us. I predict that this fact will be among the most significant factors helping humanity survive its rite of passage into adulthood.

Two transformations in thinking are essential, it seems to me, to the process of maturing from childhood, through adolescence, to adulthood. The first is shifting from thinking that the world was made for us to celebrating that we were made for the world. The second is moving from belief-based views of the world to knowledge-based understandings informed by evidence, experience, and the perspectives of others. Most of us have navigated these two shifts in our own process of maturation.

As children we naturally think the world centers around us. As adults (assuming we mature in a healthy way) we quickly recognize that our own happiness and joy is largely determined by our impact on others and on the world around us. More, our success in life is largely judged by history—that is, by the legacy we leave.

Similarly, as children our beliefs are given to us by trusted elders. Evolution would have it no other way. As adults, however, we gain a wider perspective and come to realize that our personal understandings and interpretations of reality are not the only viable ones, and that we can benefit enormously from taking into consideration the viewpoints of others, especially those outside our in-group. Real knowledge, real intelligence, is a collective endeavor.

Much of the chaos that we are experience in our world today stems from the fact that, collectively, as groups and as a species, we're smack in the middle of making these two shifts. Ironically, it's the New Atheists who are playing a prophetic role of calling religious people, and religion in general, to "get right with reality."  I'll say more about this in future posts.

6th Nobel Laureate Endorsement: Charles Townes

Charles H. Townes, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 for his work with lasers, and who was also awarded the 2005 Templeton Prize for his pioneering science and religion reconciliation work, emailed me this morning to offer the following endorsement...

"I read Thank God for Evolution with much pleasure and interest. I found it to be a very thoughtful, knowledgeable, and pertinent discussion, covering challenging and important issues with scholarship and insight."

A few hours later, Charlie (who turned 95 last week) called me on my cell phone and we had a nice chat.  I must confess that having an email exchange and a phone conversation on the same day with one of the geat scientists of the 20th Century was a real treat!

You can read about Dr. Townes' stellar career and long list of accomplishments here, here and here, and about his current interests and research projects here.

And  for those interested, all six endorsements of TGFE from Nobel Prize-winning scientists (pictures too) can be found HERE.

Life is good!

Introducing Billy Grassie

I'd like to introduce a friend and colleague in the Epic of Evolution movement, William Grassie.  "Billy", as he is known by most, is founder and emeritus executive director of the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science.  Metanexus currently works with some 400 partners at universities in 43 countries.  They publish an online journal, The Global Spiral, with over 9,000 subscribers, to which Billy is a frequent contributor.

(FYI...Billy reviewed the original Counil Oak Books version my book, Thank God for Evolution, HERE.  The Viking/Plume edition of TGFE includes references for all the quotes that Billy says in his review that he wished were there. :-)

I highly recommend Billy's website, especially his essays and book reviews.  He's not only a gifted writer and one of the leading contributors to the Epic of Evolution movement, he's quite a photographer as well, as you can see HERE.

On a recent drive from Sacramento to Ashland, Connie read aloud Billy's recent essay/book review: "A Thought Experiment: Envisioning a Civilization Recovery Plan".  I can't recommend this piece too highly.  It's both a provocative essay and a great review of David Chrisitan's book, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History.  (In case you missed it, I wrote my own off-the-charts positive review of David Christian's "Big History" Teaching Company course a few months ago, which you can see HERE.)

Please do take time to enjoy Billy's thinking, writing, and photos.  You'll be glad you did!