Hi you guys (and gal),

At Cecilia's suggestion, I've gone ahead and created a blog for us to use in these pursuits of higher truth.

Just to get things started, I went ahead and pasted the most recent post I made by email into this space - one, for the record; and two because it's easier than beginning out the box with the new thoughts that await. Yep I have a new post in the wings. So here's the last one, as you'll recall. You can post comments, and we can use this space for our ongoing discussions. Cool?

As I’m sure we all have mutually, I sure have enjoyed our intellectual pursuits toward all things seemingly infinite or at least infinitely curious. Whether it’s our attempts to define God, or the antithesis of God, or the meaning of life :), or the extent of our scientific awareness of all things, it’s been a fun and somewhat spare-time-consuming pursuit. I love thinking about the challenges we present to each other, and in doing so today I remembered something pretty significant to my own understanding. Keeping our questions and potential answers constantly buzzing in the background, and constantly seeking a new way to express my thoughts and theories on all this, I bumped into and remembered the essence of the unifying thoughts that have carried me so comfortably for the past two-dozen-plus years.

For Christmas, Shannon had given me a beautiful calendar, with striking black and white photography punctuated by ancient Asian poetry. The Asian ancients, with their profound understanding of nature in all its infinitude is what helped me personally depart from the precepts and dogmas of religion so long ago. What I’m realizing now too, the more I play with our current scientific attempts at explanation via quantum mechanics and evolution and such, is that the ancients’ organic, pre-scientific-method, manner of undertaking the infinite in both its known and unknown quantities are so poetically expressed, that they capture all the awe and wonder – and it’s not Religious either, which works for me even more...and that’s what I remembered – these texts.

The Tao Te Ching has been the most vital work of art for me in my understanding of all things and their relatedness.
Just ponder the opening passage:

“ The Way that can be told
is not the universal Way.
The name that can be named
is not the universal name.”

That verse, for me, flew right in the face of every religious connotation of the infinite, each one exclaiming their explanation and their named deities as the one and only true story. I loved this text, because the source of life’s infinite wonder, whether the measured properties at the subatomic level or the cosmic vastness yet undiscovered, whether understood or not, can’t truly be defined or named, nor especially deified. That verse particularly set me free from Religion.

I also discovered long ago, that everyone from every culture throughout the entire time of mankind has attempted to understand and define the unknown. Whether by the numerous myths of mystery, or by the methods of Bacon and Descartes, it’s a common and constant pursuit – note our own here together. The mythological attempts, which have most often become the Religions of men, are wonderfully chronicled by Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. You can also find Bill Moyers interview sessions with Joseph Campbell in a 12-part series called The Power of Myth. Powerful works and incredible in their ability to tie mankind’s earnest attempts to understand the mysteries of life through mythology. That’s how I discovered my atheism, if you will. It helped take the solitary exposure most of us have to a single Judeo-Christian mythology, and place it in context against innumerable mythologies, all of which have common threads and stories – thus, the same Hero, with a thousand different faces. There are countless Religions on the planet and the human story and the characters and traits of our humanity are similar between every culture, as are the myths each culture uses to make sense of it all. This helped me lose the energy I had early on, against the Religions of my upbringing. As I discovered that the myths were common, it provided less credence to the claims of any of them - all claiming the same thing - and as it disqualifies their claims, it also lends understanding to their pursuits – naïve, perhaps, as they may be.

But more recently, and probably most notably through the works of Deepak Chopra, I’ve discovered a spiritual-scientific approach to understanding the vast mysteries of life, and the incredible intelligence – not other-worldly, nor Godly necessarily, but the inherent intelligence in the organisms of life. My choice to revere the intelligence of life (and I say this not advocating from some fundamental zealot’s defense of their God nor their political lobby for “intelligent design as proof of God” – believe me), is to simply recognize the consistencies of nature and the intricacies in everything from the patterns of a spider web, to the rhythms of the planets, to the complexities of amino acids and to the power of intentional thought. Waveform theory is at the core of that understanding for me, as we’ve discussed at times...and will again.

I’m just putting some context into my perspectives for you, because sometimes we get waylaid by semantics and minutiae in our attempts to clarify our personal understanding against one another’s, and we get caught in some circular arguments. But that’s ok. That’s our passion for all of this.

If you’re familiar with the works mentioned, you’ll know where I’m coming from. If not, these are highly recommended again – as they were four or five years ago when we first embarked on these discussions:
The Tao Te Ching – any translation from the Tao of Pooh to numerous coffee table versions – it’s my favorite work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_te_ching
The Hero with a Thousand Faces – by Joseph Campbell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces.
The Power of Myth Video Series – by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers
The Seven Laws of Spiritual Success – by Deepak Chopra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra – probably my second favorite work.
The Power of Intention – by Dr. Wayne Dyer – a great supporting document to the waveform theory.
A Return To Love – by Marianne Williamson - this proved important to understanding the depths and power of Love energy
The Pleiadian Agenda – by Barbara Hand Clow - this is a fun wacky read that pulls some bizarre yet entertaining ideas into conscience
The Celestine Prophecy – by James Redfield - this is another fun read although dangerously adopted by legions as a new philosophy – but cool all the same

So these have informed my current perspective (plus many, many more). But one recent pursuit of ours, has been the perception of atheism and its place in this spectrum of our understanding our universe. So, although I recognize atheism as a necessary step in the rejection of certain force-fed absolutes I would challenge that it may not remain as conclusive in time, as it may seem to be now.

For as you may already know, my own atheism is no longer nearly as utterly Godless as you might understand your own atheism to be. My atheism is certainly directed toward Religions, which find their basis in myth. But my reverence to the infinite is probably still what’s greatest in me and its directed toward the incredible intelligence that I perceive in every living and inert thing in existence. Theoretically for me, that intelligence exists in the waveform which we are merely beginning to grasp intellectually at the quantum level, so far. But its theoretical extension informs everything, and gives credence, to me at least, for the perceptions of faith, prayer, intention, fear, emotion, spirit, love, imagination and so on...none of which need a God to exist, but all of which I suggest exist – I’m saying they exist in waveform and are thusly as much a part of our universe as rock and water and flesh and blood – even evolution and big bang aren’t disqualified by this notion. Nothing is disqualified, it all exists...but merely in context to itself and the energy upon it.

Once you ignore something, it doesn’t cease to exist, it just stops being relevant – note the Greek Gods or the pre-Copernican model of the stars. There’s no need to disqualify them angrily. They still are what they were – theories. What’s unfortunate is the energy put behind such theories by those in power to do so. So our rejection of God, may actually be more accurately a rejection of the power put behind the theory of God, namely Religion. That’s fair game, as is any argument that suggests absolute explanation of the unknown, whether it’s a God myth, or a scientific theory. They’re the same to me – all destined to become debris along the path to greater understanding. I simply avoid absolutes.

...and that’s what was comforting to rediscover today, in those ancient Asian texts - their poetic wonderment and organic understanding of even the greatest mysteries without suggesting any absolutes, just recognition.

Does that make any sense?

Thanks for indulging me in this,
SkooB