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There is a full moon tonight, January 10, so it seemed appropriate to name a moon deity as The Bad Witch's God of the Week. And who better than Sin, the Sumerian moon god from Mesopotamian mythology, who I have named my garden cat after.
Sin was worshipped in the ancient city of Ur and is depicted as an old man with a flowing beard. He is also known as the Lord of Wisdom. Sin had a beard made of lapis lazuli and rode a winged bull. He was married to Ningal, which means "Great Lady". Their children were Unu (Sun) and Inanna.
Sin is usually represented by the crescent moon rather than the full moon, but in the circumstances I am sure he won't mind being honoured now.
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Here is another review of Antonio Damasio's new book, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain - this time it's Alison Gopnik, who I quite like, who is offering a negative critique of the book.
I'm only about a fifth of the way into the book, and he hasn't really gotten to the point - but maybe my hopes of new and improved model from Damasio was wishful thinking.
On the bright side, Gopnik offers a great overview of the current state of consciousness studies - and she is funny, which is always a plus.
HOW WEIRD IS CONSCIOUSNESS?
SCIENTISTS MAY NOT EVEN BE ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.
By Alison Gopnik
Posted Monday, Nov. 29, 2010, at 8:00 AM ET
Consciousness used to be the crazy aunt in psychology's attic. Behaviorists and cognitive scientists alike practiced denial, but the squeaking floorboards troubled our dreams of a truly scientific discipline. Now, the old lady has been given pride of place in the parlor, with all the respectable scientific furnishing of societies and journals. But let's face it-she's still weird.
In some ways, the scientific study of consciousness has been a great success. We know more than ever about the relationship between specific types of conscious experiences and specific mind and brain states. Discouragingly, though, we are still no closer to solving the Problem of Big-C Consciousness. How is consciousness possible at all? How could the few pounds of gray goo in my skull give rise to my experience of the particular blue tint of the sky? Scientists and philosophers have suggested everything from quantum effects to information integration to brain-wave patterns. Some deny that consciousness exists at all; others argue that consciousness couldn't possibly be the result of just the brain. The scientific organizers of one of the principal consciousness conferences, in fact, deliberately let in woo-woo stuff about altered states and past lives on the principle that we have no idea where the answer might come from.
This may be less dispiriting when you realize we've been here before. The philosopher Patricia Churchland has pointed out that the problem of "Life" in the 19th century was much like the problem of "Consciousness" in the 21st. How could a few molecules ever give rise to breathing, moving, living creatures? The answer turned out to be that it was the wrong question. We now understand a great deal about the many different ways in which complex organisms with a multitude of different properties arise from much simpler chemistry. The Problem of Big-L Life has simply faded away.
Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist who has done illuminating research on emotion, decision-making, and our perception of our own bodies. He was also one of the brave early researchers who tackled the problem of consciousness head-on, and he was rewarded by several successful popular
Scientists should always think that what they study is the most interesting thing in the universe-why study it otherwise?-and Damasio believes that the key to consciousness lies, no surprise, in emotion, decision-making, and our perception of our own bodies. (Full disclosure: I am equally convinced that everything interesting can be explained by studying 3-year-olds.) He argues that the secret of capital-C Consciousness lies in the fact that brains are part of bodies. For Damasio, the neural process that tells us that our nose itches is at the root of even the most refined and ethereal spiritual experience. The body is the foundation of big-C Consciousness and provides the evolutionary bridge from even a primordial one-celled creature enveloping a speck of food to Damasio himself listening to Bach as he contemplates the Pacific Ocean.
The trouble with Damasio's hypothesis, as with all the hypotheses about capital-C Consciousness, is figuring out how you could test it. There is only one organism that I'm sure is conscious (namely, me), and there are only a few more organisms that tell me they are also conscious (namely, my fellow humans), though I'm pretty sure that my other fellow animals are conscious, too. Just to make things worse, the more you think about it, the less sure you are about the nature of your own consciousness, let alone that of other organisms. The philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel has collected many examples that shake your belief that you always know about your own experiences. For example, were you conscious a moment ago of the feeling of your feet in your shoes? You are now, of course, but were you before I made you think about it?
My fellow humans and I are (probably) conscious, and we do have bodily perceptions, emotions, decision-making capacities, and a sense of self, to be sure, but we also have all sorts of other abilities, capacities for complex visual perception, learning, attention, reasoning, etc., etc. Hardly any of those features can be independently manipulated. I can't rip my brain out of my body and see whether it experiences anything or genetically engineer a creature that had a mind but no body and examine its phenomenology. When consciousness shuts down altogether, as in sleep or coma, all of these other abilities shut down, too.
The recent scientific approaches to consciousness emphasize different aspects of conscious experience and different brain and mind states that are correlated with those experiences. We might divide them into "inside" approaches and "outside" approaches. For a philosopher, the quintessential conscious experience is to sit in the proverbial armchair and look inside your own mind. Since Descartes, some philosophers have argued, on the basis of this sort of reflection, that to be conscious is to have a sense of oneself. If I am conscious of the blue of the sky, I must know not only that there is a blue sky but that there is an "I" looking at it. This is the type of consciousness you experienced when you tried to decide whether you were conscious of your feet in your shoes. It involves that mysterious inner "I" who is also your inner eye, your autobiographer, and your chief executive officer. Other "inside" approaches emphasize focused attention and intentional planning. Psychologists like Stanislas Dehaene and Bernard Baars describe consciousness as a "workspace," a kind of phenomenological desktop on which that mysterious "I" places, arranges, and manipulates information. We've learned a lot about this inside type of consciousness. We know, for example, that the workspace has a limited capacity; we can crowd only so many things on that desktop. And we even know some of the brain networks, involving parts of the frontal cortex, that support attention, planning, reflection, and our sense of the self.
For Damasio as well, some sense of self is essential for consciousness. His contribution has been to suggest, plausibly enough, that our experience of the abstract Cartesian self has its roots in our perception, literally, of the inside of our bodies. In some not very clear way, the more primitive sense of self that comes with having a body is elaborated into the reflective self of philosophical consciousness. Perceiving my mind in the armchair depends on perceiving my behind in the armchair. And, in
"Outside" accounts of consciousness, on the other hand, tend to come from scientists, like Christof Koch, who study visual perception and who (no surprise again) think that perception is the key to consciousness. For a vision scientist, the quintessential conscious experience is to look out the window and simply see the blue of the sky, irrespective of the body, the self, attention, planning, reflection, and all the rest. The philosopher Ned Block calls this type of consciousness "phenomenal consciousness," in contrast to the "inside access consciousness" of introspection. It includes all of our perceptions and experience, everything that we feel at all, the blue of the sky, the coo of the birds, the fuzzy stuff at the periphery of our vision. It even includes the very annihilation of self we experience in the moments before sleep or in some dreams, or when we're blissfully absorbed in a book. It's the feeling of my feet in my shoes before I turn around to think about them. Phenomenal consciousness is more pervasive than access consciousness, but it is also more elusive. We've learned a great deal about how these types of conscious experience are
Damasio suggests that phenomenal awareness depends on the sense of a self. But, actually, there is evidence that the two types of consciousness may even be in tension with one another. For example, Rafael Malach and colleagues have studied what happens when people watch an absorbing Clint Eastwood movie in a brain scanner. In those circumstances, the frontal "self" network actually shuts down while the more purely visual parts of the brain are activated. This mirrors our experience. When we watch an absorbing movie we lose the sense of our selves, but we are vividly and profoundly conscious of the movie itself. In fact, shutting off planning and attention, by sitting still and inhibiting our sense of self, can lead to enhanced awareness of the world outside, as in some types of meditation. Babies and young children, who have a much more attenuated sense of self than we do, may actually experience the world outside them more vividly. For them, consciousness may be a kind of lantern illuminating everything around them, rather than the narrow-beamed flashlight that the grown-up philosophical self, like an X-files detective, keeps waving about to fitfully illuminate the psychological darkness within.
Which kind of consciousness is primordial? Is the self fundamental for consciousness, as Damasio suggests? Or does awareness come when we take in information without having to do anything about it, and is the attending and planning self merely an elaborate construction on top of that, as the Buddhists or David Hume would argue?
I suspect that the answer will turn out to be that the dichotomy between inside and outside is itself too simple. It may be that, as in the case of "life" in biology, self-reflection, attention, dreaming, planning, vision, bodily perception, emotion, and all the rest are simply too varied to have a single explanation. Helping to solve the separate pieces of the puzzle, as Damasio did in his earlier work, may always be more satisfying than speculating about a single grand design.
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INTO THE MYSTIC
This adventure has nothing to do with the Van Morrison song of the same name, but starts off with you trying to work out how to avoid a gang of orcs.
I, tear smock, S, examine moat, soak cloth in oil, S, in, close door, oil hinges, out, N, N, shout, S, S, in, close door, wait, out, search rubble, get torch, N, N, N, light torch, S, S, E, E, NW, in, get cloak, examine cloak, wear cloak, turn cloak, SE, W, W, N, N, search ashes, examine stone, clean stone, read writing, rub stone, get coin, examine coin.
E, W, N, N, E (monastery), in, in, look under bed, search basin, out, E, in, examine trapdoor, out, W, out, SE, search grass, S, NW, N, E (monastery). N.B. from here on it's essential to avoid the bandits who roam around Dark Wood. So before every directional move in or near the wood, ring the bell. E, E, E, S, search straw, get knapsack, examine knapsack, put coin in knapsack, put soap in knapsack, get cake from knapsack, examine cake (a huge clue), get cloth.
NE, E, N, in, search cave, put cloth in knapsack, get bottle, out, SE, W, W, S, eat cake, open trapdoor, drink liquid, in, put all except torch in knapsack, drop knapsack, get barrel, out, D, drop barrel, kick base, roll barrel south, U, in, get knapsack, out, D, get base, S (you're sucked through the barrel), W, get coin from knapsack, insert coin, spin wheel, get brooch, examine brooch, E, N, N, N, N, examine tapestry, read writing ("Circle to circle will trap the rays of the sun"), examine steps, stand on middle step, run West, N, NE, NW, NE, NW, NE, NE, N, examine door, count studs (the reference to 10 in the door clue means deduct 10 from the numerical position of the letters S, O and S again in the alphabet), press 959 (the door opens).
In, examine block, examine effigy, swap base for shield (a panel opens) U, open trapdoor, U (mausoleum), out, west, out, get bell from knapsack (and don't forget to keep ringing it), E, E, E, E, in, get soap from knapsack, put soap in fountain, pop bubble (this is why you needed the brooch - there's a chance element here, so keep popping until successful), examine toad (a clue). Out (don't forget to ring the bell), E, N, SE, W,W, S, D, S, N, N, N, N, stand on middle step, run West, N, NE, NW, NE, NW, NE, NE, N, in (back to the warrior effigy).
Wear knapsack, get bottle from knapsack, drink liquid, E, N, SE, N, turn habit, put bottle into knapsack, get wand from knapsack, in, examine hole ("create a fine old English fare"), put toad in hole, out, N, put brooch in knapsack, get cake from knapsack, get boots, wear boots, eat cake (repeat until large enough to get the key), unlock door, put key in knapsack, get bottle from knapsack, drink liquid, out, sw, put sandals in knapsack, get cake from knapsack, eat cake, jump river, U, wave wand, U (all the way to the mountain top), in, examine skeleton, put shield on circle, move skeleton, get nugget, N, talk to dragon, give nugget, get brooch from knapsack, cut dome, look through hole, turn off switch.You're whisked back to your cottage to be thanked by Merlin for your services to magic. 100%.
A Wibble and Blim production for The Classic Adventure Solution Archive
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Vivianne Crowley is asking pagans to help her with some research by filling in a short questionnaire. She said:
"I've been invited by the British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion group to give a paper next month on Pagan responses to the UK Census 2011. "There is a big difference of course between the survey numbers and those quote for number of Pagans in the UK and I'm trying to tease out some of the reasons. One might be that numbers have been inflated of course. The other might be that Pagans for various reasons were under-reported. "I wonder if you'd be kind enough, if you completed the Census, to answer the survey by clicking this link. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UK2011Census "All responses are anonymous. "I'd to get as many responses from different parts of the Pagan community as I can, so if there are any Pagan mailing lists/e-groups that you're involved with, it would be great if you could post the link."This sounds like very useful research that could help pagans gain more recognition for our chosen spiritual path.
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"I was at my old house on "56 Poplar St", sweeping my front porch. I was approached by an Asian man wearing a beige sports jacket, jeans, and sneakers. He was taller than the average Asian male and had short hair he wore combed straight back but which was slightly curly on top. "
"I cannot remember what he wanted or what all we talked about but I clearly recall him telling me that his grandmother used to bury coins, broom-straws, and coco powder near the front door for money and luck".-July 26th, 6:08 am "
While I had time to do this when I got home on Friday evening, I felt that something like this should be done early in the morning rather than in the evening; as it is my habit to do magic to draw things to me in the morning at or near sunrise, and magic to move things away from me in the evening near sundown. So, the following morning I got up and collected some broom-straws from my household broom, a coin in each denomination, and substituted cinnamon-sugar for the cocoa powder as I had none.
In order to analyze this rite, I began to think about the individual uses of these items in the practice of magic and Hoodoo. My first thought was that Asian + Broom Straws = Chinese Wash ( a product used for spiritual house cleansing) and that in and of itself may be something to explore as well. However, I continued to research and discovered that broom-straw is used to drive off evil (people and spirits), to uncross yourself (via a bath), and to ward off the hag that rides you.
I could find no magical tradition that used cocoa in any form of its magic except for its use in Mayan culture where it is known as "the food of the Gods". It is used to make chocolate cakes, pies, and chocolate drinks; and the coins obviously represent money.
So, symbolically speaking it seems the purpose of this spell is to lure money to you via the sweetness of the cocoa while the broom drives off any evil people or spirits that may also be drawn to the cocoa as well. Alternately, the cocoa may represent an offering to helpful Gods, spirits, energies that would look kind upon the home and bless it with wealth and luck in return for having laid out the offering of cocoa.
Blessings,
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By Gilbert Karlis
Astrology may be the process of determining the character and future of a person in the alignment from the stars and planets. Astrology does not work and can't predict future events or personalities. The Eastern astrology is event oriented, they will tell you what happened inside the past and what will happen during the future with much grater accuracy. One of the most frequent software package of horoscopic astrology is to use it to analyze the birth charts of individuals to be able to read character, psychological traits, and to some extent destiny.
Arab era astrology may be the immediate ancestor with the Western astrology of today. Our astrology can be in fact the successor to that third stream of ancient astrologies. Formulated by the Greeks and according to some of the fundamental ideas formulated in Babylon, this sort of astrology can be named judicial or genethlialic. This is the type of astrology that most of us are familiar with today, whether we are believers or skeptics. The question of why individuals consider in astrology is more intriguing than the facts from the horoscope. Psychologists have shown that shoppers are satisfied with astrological predictions as extended as the procedures are individualized in some rather vague way.
Astrology is very best understood by learning how it began. Astrology is unquestionably the oldest and too currently probably the most well-known of all pseudosciences. Astrology can be used to deepen understanding of our very own nature. This psychological method has grown significantly from the past 30 many years as additional and more astrologers develop their counseling skills. Astrology is Magical Thinking, which has given us creationism and most forms of option medicine. It is at odds with scientific reasoning and it puts the practitioner squarely in opposition for the tradition in the Enlightenment.
Astrology is pseudoscience because people commonly feel in it for illegitimate reasons. He gives no examples here. Astrology is, put simply, the understand from the correlation in between the astronomical positions with the planets and events on earth. Astrologers think that the positions on the Sun, Moon, and planets at the time of the person's birth have a direct influence on that person's character. Astrology is a fantastic mix of science, art and craft. One of the most component of it's that no matter how much one learns he can by no means embrace all its knowledge.
The belief in astrology is that the positions of specific celestial bodies either influence or correlate using a people personality trait. During the past, those people studying Astrology employed observation of celestial objects as well as the charting of their movements. Prior knowledge of astrology is not needed. The four levels of study include all necessary astrological knowledge within the very commencing to having your own, successful practice. Astrology is so known as because it ariseth from the stars; as Theology is so named because it flows from God. To live astrologically is, with a pleasing concupiscence, to take in of the Tree with the knowledge of great and evil, and to bring death to himself.
A comprehensive bibliography of astrology is beyond the scope of this FAQ, but some
For if astronomy may be the discover of the movements on the heavenly bodies, then astrology will be the study on the outcomes of those movements. The astronomers from the ancient globe assumed a division of the universe whereby the superior, immutable bodies in the celestial worlds ruled over the terrestrial or sublunary sphere, in which all was mortality and change. But astrology is no longer about just adore and money. Astrology answers many other questions. Vocational Astrology could be the art of assisting others in helping them discover what they're named to accomplish.
The practitioner of Shamanic Astrology is trained within the unaided eye knowledge and experience from the night sky, as well as the sacred rhythms, cycles and motions with the cosmos. Astrology is also an art-form-one that lends itself to quick sketches and complex portraits of individuals, couples, corporations, nations and more. Astrology can also clearly have spiritual and religious undertones as evidenced by studies of ancient Egypt. Astrology is unscientific as a result of the reality in the precession or the shifting of constellations. The early astronomers were not aware of precession and consequently failed to eat it into account in their system.
Though entertaining, Sun sign astrology is often a rather superficial, and marginally fascinating software of the complex and ancient science that dates back thousands of years. Discover how astrology is also applied to inform your decisions and augment your own wisdom. Astrology may be the ancient course of action and understand from the stars and planets. Its history goes back to Babylonian times. Astrology is this sort of a model.
Wholistic Astrology is often a way of interpreting a horoscope so that all aspects are considered. We can see tendencies in external areas this sort of are career, finance and social needs. This really is why astrology is named the "Science of Indications". With no an work to overcome the momentum of any given force or thrust of action, the indications suggest what will probably be, and in any event, astrology reveals the timing of trends and specific influences. Today, some astrology is presented this way, but this can be not genuine "traditional astrology". Did you know that Astrology was regarded as science in man's early history?
Astrology isn't some silly old thing, a superstition or pseudo-science, but a actual science of human experience. Its symbols leave room for ones vagaries of human behavior, that which can in no way be reduced to simple and absolute formulae. Perhaps the hostility exists since astrology is nevertheless a living practice, a actual competitor for well-known respect and patronage. I hope how the conventional hostility can be dying in between historians and social scientists and that a true understanding of this influential procedure and belief. It does not mean that astrology is accurate in predicting human behavior or events to a degree much higher than mere chance. There are numerous satisfied customers who think that their horoscope accurately describes them and that their astrologer has given them great advice.
Astrology is harmless, it's an entertainment. Whatever its former glories, it looks now a five-and-dime look in the cosmos. Astrology is possibly probably the most ancient subject and also inside a way one of the most ignored. It is the most ancient simply because astrology has been in existence as far back as we now have been in a position to investigate the history of mankind. Instead, they like to supply anecdotal evidence -stories individuals tell about how accurate they think astrology is. Anecdotal evidence just isn't acceptable inside a genuine science due to the fact it's too effortless to leave out all the unfavorable experiences persons have, and persons not great at recalling and accurately reporting experiences.
Astrology is in accordance with birth charts for an individual. The position from the Sun, Moon and planets is plotted on the zodiac at the moment of birth. Moreover, astrology just isn't a quick study. Traditionalists applied to say it takes a student a single transit of Saturn, about 30 years, being proficient. Vedic Astrology is component of a holistic, integrated knowledge program and its results can be bolstered by interoperating with its "sister" sciences. The Vedic Astrology method is type in that not just is a individual told what may well happen, but they're presented a list of capacity remedies or corrective actions to offset the amount and high quality of karmas that are returning to them, as witnessed during the birth chart.
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"Note: This interview originally appeared at the BioLogos website. Reprinted here with permission."
Michael Gungor and his wife, Lisa, are Grammy-nominated musicians and co-leaders of the musical collective Gungor, which has released three studio albums and a live album. On August 2, "World" magazine published an article entitled "Gungor Drifts From Biblical Orthodoxy" which references a 2013 interview and several of Michael's old blog posts - and accuses the band of slipping outside the bounds of biblical faith, particularly on issues of creation and biblical authority.
"World'"s critique went viral on social media, prompting at least three concert cancellations as well as responses from Relevant" magazine and Ken Ham.* Gungor responded last week in a blog post entitled "I'm With You." He agreed to talk with BioLogos about the controversy, as well as his support of evolutionary creation and his critique of biblical literalism.
WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT A CHURCH CANCELLED YOUR CONCERT BECAUSE OF YOUR VIEWS ON GENESIS?
Well, as of right now, we've had three concerts cancel and a few other promoters are thinking about canceling. We've also had our music taken out of Lifeway Christian
I had to go through a period of perspective shifting, which can be a very scary and even painful thing to go through. But the perspective that I moved to could be summed up like this: Is it possible for a myth to be beautiful, important, and even "true"? And I now absolutely believe that the answer to that question is yes.
There is a beauty to a great symphony or piece of poetry, for example, that has nothing to do with the other elements of "truth" like historical accuracy. Is the truth that speaks to us through Shakespeare's "Hamlet" any less truthful because "Hamlet" is not a historically accurate story? Is it any less of a story? Likewise, does believing that Adam (a name meaning "man") and Eve were not actually two individual naked people in a garden 6,000 years ago having conversation with a snake make the idea that "the wages of sin is death" any less true? In fact, are there any truths other than historical accuracy that we can glean from those stories that are less "true" if those stories are myths and poems? I don't see any.
YOUR 2011 ALBUM "GHOSTS UPON THE EARTH" BEGAN WITH FOUR TRACKS DRAWN FROM GENESIS. YOU ALSO NAMED YOUR 2012 LIVE ALBUM "A CREATION LITURGY." WHY ARE YOU SO PASSIONATE ABOUT CREATION, ESPECIALLY IN THE CONTEXT OF WORSHIP?
The Church has always taught that creation is a sort of testament of God, just as the Bible is. For me, personally, my faith has often come alive in the most profound ways when I take the time to "consider the heavens" as the Psalmist said. I often feel closer to God lying on my back and looking at the stars, or gazing out at a seemingly endless ocean, than I do in some church services. And as a worshipper, I think church songwriters too often overlook this testament of God. There is just so much poetry waiting to be discovered in the waves, wind and trees of God's masterpiece.
IN YOUR BLOG POST "A WORSHIPPING EVOLUTIONIST," YOU CONTRAST YOUR "ANTI-EVOLUTION" CHILDHOOD WITH YOUR CURRENT BELIEF THAT THE EARLY CHAPTERS OF GENESIS ARE POETIC IN NATURE, AND EVOLUTION REALLY HAPPENED. WHAT WERE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCED THIS SIGNIFICANT SHIFT IN YOUR THINKING?
I started reading the science because I was trying to convince my "godless" professor that he was wrong about the age of the earth and how life came to be so diverse on this planet. Fortunately, I was raised in a way that valued good thinking, so I wasn't afraid of what I would find... until I found it. Then it was terrifying. I thought that what I was seeing might disprove the whole Bible.
What I realize now is that this rather common view of Scripture is a very reductionistic and unhealthy one that has been handed to us from modernity. There is no reason to create the sort of dichotomies that many fundamentalists create where one is forced to believe every nuance of one particular interpretation of Scripture or reject the whole thing outright. I think these dichotomies are a big reason that so many young adults and college students choose the latter.
IN ONE OF YOUR RECENT BLOGS, YOU SAY THAT "SCIENCE AND RATIONAL THOUGHT" MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO BELIEVE IN A LITERAL NOAH'S ARK, EVEN THOUGH YOU STILL BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, HEAVEN, RESURRECTION, ETC. UNFORTUNATELY, SCIENCE AND FAITH HAVE HAD A DIFFICULT TIME CO-EXISTING WITHOUT ATTEMPTING TO STEAMROLL EACH OTHER. WHY DO YOU THINK HARMONY IS SO DIFFICULT? HOW CAN CHRISTIANS SHOW THE WAY FORWARD IN CREATING HARMONY BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE?
I have a four-year-old girl named Amelie. She wears princess dresses nearly every day and usually has a stethoscope around her neck because she considers herself a princess doctor. This works well for a four year old, but let's be honest, I wouldn't want Sleeping Beauty operating on me. Nor do I necessarily want my surgeon entering the room in a frilly pink dress believing that she is actually a magical princess who can use her powers during my surgery. Princesses and doctors both have their place in society, but they probably shouldn't compete with one another very often. If two different teams try to play two different games on the same field against each other, it's probably not going to go very well.
Good scientists have a very clear road that lays out what they are trying to do. They are generally using observation and experimentation to understand the physical universe. They focus on questions like, "How did life arise on planet earth?" Religious people are also trying to understand the world we live in, but it is a different sort of understanding. It is questions like, "Why did life arise on earth?" that belongs in the realm of a philosophical or religious discussion. I think the problems happen when the two perspectives infringe into the other discipline's zone. The scientists try to be philosophers and the philosophers try to fudge the science. I think a way forward is to adopt the position of so many Christians throughout history: Let scientists do the science, and if that plainly contradicts something we read in Scripture, then re-interpret how we are reading Scripture. The Bible makes for a great religious text, but it is not such a great science book. And vice versa.
YOU TITLED YOUR RECENT BLOG SERIES "I'M WITH YOU" AS A STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH YOUR CRITICS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? HOW CAN CHRISTIANS DIALOGUE MORE GRACIOUSLY ON THESE IMPORTANT ISSUES?
I think that Christians need to realize that what we agree on is so much more important than what we disagree about. While this whole Genesis interpretation thing was boiling last week on social media, other Christians were being slaughtered in Iraq. While we were dividing over little interpretation issues, there are countless people still in need of clean water in the world. My point is that we have so much work to do, and any energy spent dividing and splintering is wasted energy. I wanted the fundamentalists that I see myself as being on the same team as them. I came from their ranks and in so far that their mission is to bring the life and hope of Jesus to the world, we are trying to do the exactly the same thing.
So let's have discussion. We can share a meal together and enjoy debating and philosophizing through the whole thing. But at the end of the day, let's remember that we are in this together. And let us remember the prayer of the one who prayed in the garden before he was crucified: "May they be one as you and I are one."
"*Note: an earlier draft indicated that Gungor's music had been removed" from a major Christian
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