Reply #16: You know what you also might find interesting?

[Ian David]

Scientific pantheism: basic principles
by Paul Harrison.

When our era was young, we believed as children believe. Now we are adults, it is time to put away childish things. It is time to adopt a religion that embraces the space age, and that supports our love of nature and our efforts to preserve the earth.
That religion is pantheism.

Divine cosmos, sacred earth.

Pantheism has two central tenets:
The cosmos is divine.
The earth is sacred.

When we say the cosmos is divine, we mean it with just as much conviction, emotion and commitment as believers when they say that their god is God.
But we are not making a vague statement about an invisible being who is beyond proof or disproof. We are talking about our own emotional responses to the real universe and the natural earth.

When we say "That tree is beautiful," we are not saying anything about the tree in itself, but about the way we feel we must respond to the tree. We are talking about the relationship between us and the tree.

In the same way, if we say THE UNIVERSE IS DIVINE we are making a statement about the way our senses and our emotions force us to respond to the overwhelming mystery and power that surrounds us. We are saying this:

We are part of the universe. Our earth was created from the universe and will one day be reabsorbed into the universe.

We are made of the same matter as the universe. We are not in exile here: we are at home. It is here and nowhere else that we can see the divine face to face. If we erect barriers in our imagination - if we believe our real home is not here but in a land that lies beyond death - if we believe that the divine is found only in old books, or old buildings, or inside our head - then we will see this real, vibrant, luminous world as if through a glass darkly.

The universe creates us, preserves us, destroys us. It is deep and old beyond our ability to reach with our senses. It is beautiful beyond our ability to describe in words. It is complex beyond our ability to fully grasp in science. We must relate to the universe with humility, awe, reverence, celebration and the search for deeper understanding - in other words, in many of the ways that believers relate to their God.

More:
http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/basicpri.htm


See also:

Minbari
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minbari