Thursday, November 13, 2014

Is Science Revelation?

The relationship between the Church and science is a strange one.

On the one hand, there is no legitimate religious Christian sect which still holds the six 24 hour days of creation to be a fact.

No church still holds that the sun rotates around the earth. Nor does anyone yet believe that the sun "stood still" at the Biblical battle of Jericho.

Why, then, is there such reluctance to have religious organizations accept the sciences of the body and the mind as we have come to know them?

How difficult would it be to acknowledge that the metaphor of a "Father" is a potential for behavioral mischief? If a competent psychologist were to look objectively at some of the attributes imposed upon "God" by writers of the Old Testament, wouldn't the diagnosis be that the Old Testament God was a bit of an egocentric bully with evidence of temperamental pettiness?

At that point wouldn't anyone have to ask, "Why?" Why would God be petty? What need would there be to proclaim the first commandment?

If the answer is, as it surely must be, "None," the reason to the strained relationship between the Church and science begins to clarify--Church is in danger of devolving into irrelevancy, and that devolution could threaten whatever moral underpinnings of human behavior there are which are based on Church teachings.

How to prevent this collapse is the great question for religious leaders.

It needn't be difficult. Just accept that "revelation" is an on-going process and with each forward step in science our understanding of "God" increases and we must adjust to that understanding.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

It doesn't end

Revelation, if there is such a thing, didn't end with the last conversation an angel had with a human being.

Every day, scientists learn just a tad more about their specialties, and with that additional knowledge we understand a little more about the universe in which we live, and that understanding is part of the on-going "revelation."

Reason demands that revelation is on-going.

Respect for the universe demands that revelation is on-going.

The continuing existence of humanity demands that revelation is on-going.


Friday, January 17, 2014

Eleanor McCullen--A Lover? Of what?

Eleanor McCullen has made quite a name for herself. Her little journey to the Supreme Court has certainly stirred emotions across the land.

To watch her television interviews on the day of the oral arguments makes one wonder about the degree of certainty with which she sails forth declaiming "love" several times in the broadcast clip. How can she be so certain that God is on her side in this discussion?

Richard Rodriguez, in Darling, writes: The blasphemy that attaches to monotheism is the blasphemy of certainty. If God is on our side, we must be right. We are right because we believe in god. We must defend God against the godless.” p 46.

"The blasphemy of certainty" is quite a pregnant phrase. It encapsulates the usually unspoken question, "How do we know what God wants? Scripture? Are we sure about that? We are implying that God has never again  "spoken" to believers since the Bible has been closed to change, that words to Muhammed were the last uttered in revelation, that the Torah has existed for three thousand years as the ultimate Word. 

How do we know there has not been revelation since? Can God not add to what has been written? Are we so sure of the silence--that it has been and will forevermore be as it was hundreds of years ago? 

Is is not blasphemous to proclaim that the Divinity has decided enough has been revealed? How does one know the mind of God? 

If it is not blasphemy then it certainly is arrogance.

"Love," Ms McCullen? How can you be so certain?