The Living Universe

by Joshua Gorman

Duane Elgin, author of Awakening Earth, Voluntary Simplicity, and The Promise Ahead, has recently released a new book titled The Living Universe: Where are we? Who are we? Where are we going?  As with his earlier works, Elgin demonstrates once again his celebrated role as a grand cosmic storyteller.

The Living Universe highlights clearly how our species and human civilization are currently facing a system-wide crisis that is calling us to enter into a new relationship with our selves, each other, and our "Mother Universe" that all things have been born from.  Duane compellingly shares the story of how we are awakening to our place in the long march of History and to the evolutionary journey that we are still a part of today.  He writes, "We are bio-cosmic beings who are waking up to find ourselves in a living universe and our evolutionary task is to grow into the bigness of who we are, both personally and collectively."

As we navigate through the storms our current global challenges, humanity is beginning to consciously come-of-age into a deep-rooted connection with our natural world and with the living and dynamic process of Creation.  This "great awakening" is allowing us to join forces with the "flow of History" and to align ourselves in healthy ways with the self-organizing nature and increasing complexity of the Universe.

A shift of unimagined proportions is taking place, and as greater numbers of humanity awaken from a "dead view" of the Universe to a "living view" of the Universe, we are engaging in a conscious transition to a life-sustaining world of meaning, connection, and aliveness.  As Elgin shares, this is the great story of our time that holds life-changing consequences, and it is from here that the main message of his new book sounds forth into the world: "We are beings of cosmic connection who are learning to live in a living universe."

Learn more by watching a short new video about the book with Duane with his grandchildren, and read an excerpt of the book that includes the Table of Contents, the Foreword by Deepak Chopra, and a selection from Chapter One.

» Video
» Book Excerpt
» Purchase the Book

Two New Stories of Awakening to Evolution

by Michael Dowd
As Connie and I conclude our seventh year of traveling the USA teaching and preaching a sacred understanding of the Epic of Evolution, I round out our posted collection of “Stories of Awakening” with two more tales. Both pertain to one of my most popular program elements: evolutionary brain science, and both vividly demonstrate how an evolutionary understanding fosters the spiritual virtue of compassion.

"No question, I would have given myself to him"

A woman came up to me after my program and thanked me profusely for mentioning the effects on women's sex drive when in the presence of high-status men. She told me this story: "When my kids were really young, Bill Clinton's motorcade drove past my house, and I actually saw him in the car. I felt this sudden wave of desire wash over me. If he'd have stopped, no question I would have given myself to him — and I was happily married!"

"My compassion for men went up four-fold"

After my program on evolutionary brain science at a large Christian church, a woman told me this story: "There was a time when I had to take testosterone supplements, and it increased my compassion for men four-fold. Not only did my sex drive go up, but I felt more aggressive and a lot more willing to take risks. It was amazing!"
» Peruse online scores of such anecdotes collected by Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow during their travels

Evo Evangelists Barnstorm Texas

by Connie Barlow

Texas is always a big presence in the ongoing challenges to the teaching of evolutionary science in public schools. Not surprisingly, then, television news stations, radio talk show hosts, and newspaper editors in Texas found our evolutionary evangelism worthy of coverage.

Michael Dowd and I were in Texas for most of the month of February, traveling from Houston to San Antonio to Austin and Waco, delivering Sunday morning sermons, illustrated slide talks, and children’s programs in 18 events hosted by a dozen churches and one yoga center. For example, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (February 12), Michael delivered an evening talk provocatively titled, “Thank God for Evolution.” Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Huntsville, the program attracted 105 area residents to the venue location: Sam Houston Memorial Museum (pictured above).

The reception was overwhelmingly supportive. Media reports, including VIDEO of an ABC News interview broadcast nationally, can be accessed at the “Texas Photo-Essay” link below.

A highlight for me of our time in Texas was the “Forum” discussion preceding Sunday service at Thoreau Unitarian Universalist Congregation, southwest of Houston. Because I was also scheduled to do a guest sermon there that morning (titled, “Evolution Now”), and because I had a cold, I was fearful that my voice would give out. So, I decided to center discussion not on my words but around an evolutionary parable I had written several years earlier and had posted on TheGreatStory.org website (see link below). The parable I chose was a 4-part dramatic script titled, “Startull: The Story of an Average Yellow Star.” Although it is suitable for young children, because of the science and the values expressed (especially a celebratory understanding of the death of elders) this particular parable is ideal for adults and youth. Volunteers energetically recited and acted out their scripts. A good time was had by all, and the subsequent discussion was heartful as well as intellectual.

Other highlights for me in Texas were the two religious education classes I guest-taught at Bay Area Unitarian Church in Houston near the end of February. While Michael was presenting the sermon at both morning services, I was in with the kids: first with 1st through 3rd graders; next with the teens. For the younger kids, I presented the first 40 minutes of my highly interactive “River of Life” program (linked below) — with lots of illustrations, guessing games, and song. It is a walk back through time, through our own ancestors and the special ancestors (which Richard Dawkins calls “concestors”) that we share with other “streams” of life. Kids universally love it!

For the teens, I always choose to offer “Your Brain’s Creation Story” (linked below) — which speaks to the challenges that youth especially feel in initiating and maintaining romantic relationships and in saying “no” to influences and substances that can do them harm. A week later, I had more time to walk through these ideas with 30 teens at the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City. As always, at the end of the program I offered free buttons and sticky labels with the brain chart emblem on them. The teens are always eager to take them — as an understanding of our evolved brain is intriguingly useful for just about everyone, and salvific for some.

We happened to be in central Oklahoma when Richard Dawkins gave a talk (to more than 3,000 students and visitors) at Oklahoma University. It was an amazing event. As Michael wrote in his blog,

“Connie and I made the long drive not just to hear Richard speak but to witness a rather unique phenomenon: a scientist/atheist whose presence on a college campus in the reddest of red states had a "rock star" feel to it—and had prompted a state legislator to introduce a resolution "expressing disapproval of the actions of the University of Oklahoma to indoctrinate students in the theory of evolution; opposing the invitation to Richard Dawkins to speak on campus."

More...

» Michael’s blog, “RICHARD DAWKINS: Rock Star in Oklahoma”
» Connie’s PHOTO-ESSAY of the TEXAS events
» EVOLUTIONARY PARABLES
» “RIVER OF LIFE” children’s program
» “YOUR BRAIN’S CREATION STORY” teen program

Connie’s “Evolution Now” sermon:
» PDF
» Audio

"God" as a Personification of Undeniable Reality

by Michael Dowd

Birth, life, death, the cycles and rhythms of Nature, the elemental forces of the Universe—these are undeniably real.  Like it or not, we humans have always been in an inescapable relationship with a Reality that we could neither fully predict nor control.  And given the nature of our brains, there's one thing that people in every culture and throughout history have instinctually done: we've used metaphors and analogies to understand and relate to that which is unavoidably, undeniably real and/or mysterious.  We can't not do this.  Consciously or unconsciously, we will always interpret via metaphors.

ALL images and concepts of God are more or less meaningful interpretations and personifications of Undeniable Reality, or Unavoidable Mystery.  And it didn't take a genius to figure out that if you trust, or have faith, in what is ultimately inescapable, your life works better than if you judge or resist what is Real.  This is not theological rocket science.

Whenever any story, any culture, or any scriptural passage claims "God said this..." or "God did that...," what follows is necessarily a meaningful interpretation of some individual or group's inner or outer experience; it is never a measurable fact.  In other words, had CNN or ABC News been there to record the moment of divine revelation, there would have been nothing out of the ordinary (nothing miraculous) to report on the evening news—nothing other than what was coming out of someone's mouth, or pen, or whatever folks wrote with back then.  If we fail to understand this, we belittle God and will surely miss what Reality is revealing today.  And we mock God if we imagine that a truly divine communicator would have spoken to humanity as a whole more clearly through goat herders and fisherman in the distant past, via their dreams and intuitions, than through cumulative evidence discovered by the global community of scientists alive today.  After all, if the worldwide, self-correcting scientific endeavor is anything, it is the pursuit of collective intelligence and a cultural system designed to hold people accountable for their factual statements—their truth claims.

As I discuss at length in Part II of TGFE ("Reality is Speaking"), facts are God's native tongue.  In the same way that Reality is always speaking to us individually through our feelings, circumstances, and relationships (i.e., through our experience), empirical evidence is how Reality (God) speaks to us collectively.  Few things are more important, it seems to me, than appreciating this and acting on it at all levels of society, the sooner the better.

Fortunately, this perspective seems to be resonating with lots of heavyweight science and religion leaders:

Endorsements from Nobel Prize-winning scientists
Praise from other Science Luminaries
Response from Religious Leaders Across the Spectrum (by Affiliation)

ALSO SEE:

Are God and Satan Real?
The Silly Debate Over God's Existence
Evolution as Meaningful, Inspiring Fact

7 Deadly Sins of Old-Time Religion

by Michael Dowd
"A mistake about Creation will necessarily result in a mistake about God." —Saint Thomas Aquinas

One of the most important truths revealed in recent centuries is this: everything—the entire Universe—is in an ongoing process of deep-time transformation.  Galaxies and star systems evolve.  Planets evolve.  Life evolves.  Human cultures evolve.  Individuals and groups of all sizes evolve.  And our personal and collective thinking about life's big questions (including our concepts/stories of Ultimacy, God, or Undeniable Reality) evolve, too.  Reflecting on this is, I suspect, what led Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to write:

"Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis?  It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, and all systems must bow and satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true.  Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow."

Over the next few weeks, I will elaborate on The 7 Deadly Sins of Old-Time Religion, taking them one at a time.  I will show that there are 7 profoundly negative consequences of religious resistance to a measurable understanding of reality, and deep-time view of grace.  Specifically, I will reveal how, from a religious naturalism point of view, a pre-evolutionary worldview frozen within scriptural literalism necessarily...

1. Trivializes God, guidance, and good news;
2. Balkanizes religion and bastardizes science;
3. Desacralizes nature;
4. Blasphemes death;
5. Fails our children in three tragic, unnecessary ways;
6. Denies individuals and families access to the most important saving wisdom for overcoming personal and relational challenges; and
7. Blinds us from seeing the true nature of the current global integrity crisis.
Everything must evolve in order to remain viable.  Three billion years ago, life (bacteria and archaea) thrived in a context of 2% oxygen.  Today, anything less than 15% oxygen would wipe out all mammals.  In an ever-emerging, ever-developing Cosmos, conditions that were once healthy and lifegiving can later become dangerous or even deadly—which is, of course, why life must be so adaptive.

Traditional religions will either evolve like everything else or, paradoxically, they will destroy nearly everything they stand for, or perhaps just go extinct.  I'm betting my life that they will evolve, and will become more lifegiving then ever—not just for their own members but for the entire Earth community.  This is, indeed, why I wrote Thank God for Evolution, and why Connie and I have been living on the road for 7 years, sharing a sacred, meaningful view of cosmic, Earth, life, and human history with religious and secular audiences across America.

The boldest creedal assertions are in the future, not the past.  I foresee a time in the not-too-distant future when churches and other religious organizations preach and teach the science-based epic of evolution as our common creation story, and when this story is seen as foundational for moral instruction and teaching values to the next generations.  Widespread awareness of The 7 Deadly Sins of Old-Time Religion will, I pray, significantly further this process.

Houston, we have a sermon

by Michael Dowd

Today, Michael Dowd presented a special Sunday sermon at Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, Texas. Click “Podcast” link below to listen.

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Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!

by Michael Dowd
February 12th is Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. While reflecting on the life and legacy of this great scientist and devoted husband and father, I’ve been struck by how an evolutionary understanding of the universe has, in fact, REALized my religious faith. I now enjoy all the benefits and blessings of religion from a place of knowledge rather than belief. When I look to the past, I am filled with awe and gratitude. When I look around me in the present, I feel love, compassion, and a desire to do everything I can to ensure a healthy world. And when I look to the future, including a future without me, I feel a deep and all-embracing trust.

Thanks to the role that Charles Darwin and countless other evolutionaries have played in enriching my faith and guiding my path, today I have no resentments, no secrets, and no unfinished business. More, I am able to ‘follow my bliss’ full-time with Connie Barlow, my perfect mission partner. If there’s a heaven on this side of death, surely this is it.

I hope you enjoy this second issue of The EVOLUTIONARY TIMES.

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