NCRcafe New Search DISCUSSION Number TEN June 2007

ANOTHER CALL TO ACTION

The Journey from Belief to Knowledge

If we are moving from an originally functional evolutionary way of belief to a contemporarily functional evolutionary way of seeking knowledge, then specifically what does that mean? Let’s take one example.

Scholarship Trumps

If Christianity is a fantasy faith founded on mythology or a discrete cultural input of past age beliefs, then update or replacement is required. We have seen two recent examples in Sheehan’s article and Dupre’s response letter of the serious need for replacement of certain Christian beliefs. There are many other sources in the enterprise of biblical scholarship that clearly manifest the need for revision. Robert Funk’s The Acts of Jesus is a prime example. (The Jesus Seminar of which Funk was a founding member makes biblical scholarship available to the general public.)

But unfortunately the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchical structure and its required indoctrination do not enable the intellectual freedom for the average Catholic even after the groundbreaking days of Vatican II! Nevertheless, if one reads the literature at large, one has to move beyond Vatican II to examining Catholicism from an outsider’s viewpoint, rather than from an insider’s viewpoint, even a liberal insider’s viewpoint. Such a change in perspective has a predictable consequence. One understands that authoritarian control of responsible intellectual freedom does not respect our species’ better attributes – revealing another example of the dysfunction of Axial Age religions.

Here’s a place where there is a basic need for revision. There is historical evidence to persuade a believer to acknowledge the heavily weighted probability (and it is rational to choose the stronger probability) that there was no Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Consequently, the bedrock of Christianity disappears. The Incarnation as the initiation of Redemption and the Resurrection as its culmination are the foundations of Christianity. Everything else has been added on as theological church building. As mentioned earlier, we can still call it Christianity, though deprived of its foundations and do with it what we want; but without its foundations we “-- build theological castles in the air--” to borrow a phrase of the late Arthur Peacocke, biochemist and Anglican theologian. There’s no edifice without a foundation.

As an afterthought, on the one hand, often enough we base life choices on probabilities because certainty and evidence are not always available. But on the other hand, often enough there are times when we must and do have enough certainty and evidence to exercise our responsibilities. C’est la vie.

Reasons for Christianity Having Run Its Course

Why such a transformation in thinking after roughly 2000 years? Three of the reasons are biblical and other historical scholarship, scientific advances, and the application of epistemological (theory of knowledge) competence. Let’s focus on biblical scholarship resources for now.

Discussion #2 mentioned some of the biblical scholarship. Reading Funk’s book, for me, was “an inverse conversion experience.” Since his recent death, the Weststar Institute in Santa Rosa, California transmits his scholarly torch. The Fellows and Associates carry their own fire but have no monopoly on the enterprise. (Consult, for instance, the work of The Society of Biblical Literature, examples of similar work.)

The Journey from Belief to Knowledge Needs a Fast-Track Technology

I’m not trying to be inordinately injudicious. But I believe that the sooner we set aside a PAST age’s fictional faith and embrace a PRESENT age’s reality-based faith in human knowledge and skill in working together en masse to save ourselves and our fellow planetary creatures, the quicker we’ll have a more guaranteed preferred FUTURE.

Determining what the “faith” of a Post Axial Age ought to be requires more time and further discussion. So let’s postpone that discussion in the light of planet Earth’s emergency situation and consider what we should do. Spending our time and energy to meet the crisis ought to be our highest priority. We are losing our planet rapidly! Almost every day gives us more indication of the losses.

For example, consider this Netscape Report (05/17/07) of Michael McCarthy’s article Earth’s Natural Defenses Against Climate Change ‘Beginning to Fail’. (The Independent, May 18, 2007) “The earth's ability to soak up the gases causing global warming is beginning to fail because of rising temperatures, in a long-feared sign of "positive feedback," new research reveals today. Climate change itself is weakening one of the principal "sinks" absorbing carbon dioxide - the Southern Ocean around Antarctica - a new study has found. As a result, atmospheric CO2 levels may rise faster and bring about rising temperatures more quickly than previously anticipated. Stabilising the CO2 level, which must be done to bring the warming under control, is likely to become much more difficult, even if the world community agrees to do it. The news may give added urgency to the meeting in three weeks' time between the G8 group of rich nations and the leading developing countries led by China, at Heiligendamm in Germany, when an attempt will be made to put together the framework of a new world climate treaty to succeed the current Kyoto protocol. “

Another source, (Reuters, Netscape Report, 05/22/07) demonstrates that THERE IS CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT WE ARE WELL INTO THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION SINCE LIFE BEGAN ON EARTH. How massive the extinction may be is entirely up to us! A discussion in Wikipedia provides a mathematical formulation of what the Reuters article was saying with stark, concrete facts. Significantly, the rate of species extinctions at present is estimated at 100 to 1000 times "background" or average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth; moreover, this current rate of extinction is thus 10 to 100 times greater than any of the prior mass extinction events in the history of the Earth. If this rate of extinction continues or accelerates, the number of species becoming extinct in the next decade could number in the millions. While most people readily relate to endangerment of large mammals or birdlife, some of the greatest ecological issues are the threats to stability of whole ecosystems, if key species vanish at any level of the food chain. After the Wikipedia search, I came across reams of material on extinction on the Internet.

Fortunately world governments are pledging to try to slow down the loss of biodiversity by 2010 (From another Internet source). So let us take heart people. This would be a great area for ecological work possibilities. Speaking of such, now for some more good news.

Knowledge to Action ---Fast Track!

Paul Hawken’s book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming (New York: Viking Press, 2007) foresees a worldwide grassroots movement of hope and humanity. But why would no one see it coming? I think because it’s so obvious. Hawken describes a convergence of the environmental and social justice movements as the largest social and fastest growing movement in history comprising over one million organizations in every country in the world. Hawken’s book coincides with the May 2007 launch of a website, Wiser Earth, an open source social network with a database of more than 100, 000 organizations. How’s that for job possibilities? We are in tune with Hawken that the world is changing from one created by privilege (top down) to one created by community (bottom up).

So one needs to pick the niche that fits with his or her individual creative abilities, talents and gifts. Then we need to network, link hands with our friends and go for it! As Vault beverage would say – get to it! As Nike would say – just do it! Our world’s children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and on down the line -- as well as the planet’s other -- living and non-living creatures -- await our efforts to liberate them from dangers of the precarious twenty-first century that we have created. That liberation should start now as a part of a post-Axial Age faith and a continuation of yesteryear’s great feats for people and planet!