This section applies the Key Principles to reveal deeper insights into the nature of religious and spiritual beliefs.

This section will also include content from forthcoming books by author Steaphen Pirie. The extracts are generally in the form of question and answer dialogues, some of which will be as follows:

See also

 

Applying Key Principles

[Posted 3 Oct. 2008, 5.23am, by Stephen Pirie]

Are there some rules by which we can clarify our understanding of life? Are there key principles that can be used for practical results, to yield greater creativity, understanding, ease, peace-of-mind?

Clearly, a key principle must exist .. some connecting mechanism or principle has to be operating at a root level of life. Furthermore, whatever that principle, it has to accommodate the theories and proofs of science, particularly science's most successful physical theory in history (quantum mechanics).

How might we recognise this principle? What should we look for? Can we use it in any area of life, to more deeply understand any experience?

Introducing the Pairadox Rule -- a useful tool by which to assess 'truth' and by which to advance understanding, insight, creativity and effectiveness.

Q. Is Darwinian Evolution correct, or "Intelligent Design"?

Applying the Key Principles of Life: Religion

Being a separate individual person while being embedded in integrated, interconnected groups is a paradox that we cannot fully understand. As covered in Key Principle of Life, for Life No.1, we are neither "perfectly independent", nor "perfectly dependent."

Entirely understanding this paradoxical dynamic is beyond direct reasoning, science and mathematics.

more details soon, on how Key Principles of Life, for Life provide fresh perspectives on religious ideas and beliefs.

Can Science and Religion be Integrated?

by Prof. Amit Goswami (August 10, 2008)

Can science and religion be integrated? What comes to mind immediately is that religions themselves cannot agree with one another whereas science is basically monolithic. How can there even be trade between the two, let alone integration?

First, it is only a perception that religions are pluralistic and science is not. Science is monolithic only so far as science of matter–physics and chemistry–is concerned. Psychology, the science of the psyche, has three different paradigms–behavioral-cognitive consisting of hard science orientation, depth psychology consisting of Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology and their derivatives with psychotherapy orientation, and humanistic-transpersonal-yoga psychology with positive mental health orientation. Both the later paradigms of psychology acknowledge downward causation and subtle bodies in some form or other. Medicine has the conventional allopathic medicine and also alternative medicine practices that complement it. A prominent part of alternative medicine is Eastern medicine that emphasizes subtle energies called variously as prana, chi, and ki. And biology is in transition right now. The materialist biology is highly developed but with some unsolved (maybe unsolvable) problems. Alternative biology is biology that sees life as the handiwork of a purposive designer with the power of downward causation; but at present it is so poorly developed that hardly anyone can call it a genuine alternative biology.

Can we talk to God?

[posted: 14 Dec 2008, 11.51pm]

As a child-race we have naturally looked up to our spiritual source, as do many children with their parents: as being all-powerful, all-knowing and perfect.

When we apply Key Principle 1 (the Community-as Principle) we are invited to let go the immature perception that God is some disconnected, separate and superior Father-figure  that sits "up there" in judgement of us.

Enabling Awareness, Relating and Transformative Change

[ Copyright Stuart B. Hill

(Reprint. Points to consider for discussion)

  1. Working with the processes of change (personal, social and ecological); the importance of ‘small meaningful initiatives we can guarantee to carry through to completion’; Lewin’s ‘Force Field Analysis’ (driving and restraining forces); and the public sharing and celebration of change.

    Bragging about examples from your past and present; dreaming and planning about initiatives for the future (in relation to your personal wellbeing and relationships); keeping track of your progress.
     

  2. Expanding our awareness – building on our past, preparing for our future – and its relationships with empowerment, vision, values, relationships, wellbeing and effective and meaningful action.

Is God perfect? Will God save me?

To believe in perfection requires a disconnect between our present reality and potentials with some other "up there" state which is separated from "here" and "now."

Key Principle of Life, for Life No. 1 (The Community-As or God-as Principle) affirms that our lives unfold from a vast, invisible web-work of connections, potentials and influences, and that we are never entirely disconnected or separate from All (including God). We are God-as-us, and any abilities ascribed to God are necessarily available to each of us (for as we ... "seek, ye shall find"). More importantly, and of more relevance to most, is that whatever faults we have, or whatever faults and evils we observe in ourselves or others, is necessarily also within God – as within the part, so within the whole.

A belief in a separate distant state of perfection is therefore driven by the fear or inexperience of looking within ourselves to find our own readily-available unbounded potentials.

In historical terms, the collective human psyche can be judged to be in late adolescence, or early adulthood1.

Key Principle of Life, for Life No. 2

KPLL No.2 affirms the inability to meaningfully analyse parts independent of their relationship to the whole (as any independence requires nonsense disconnects that are meaningless and contrary to KPLL No. 1).

The world around us co-exists with us at-once -- no science, at least none that rely on measurable confirmations (reliant on speed-of-light delays) can fully and entirely confirm that at-once nature. That is to say, there will remain a fullness (wholeness) to life that will not be fully revealed by scientific inquiry.

Key Principle of Life, For Life No. 2:
All occurs at once

Individuals and communities exist at-once.
‘Parts’ and ‘wholes’ have validity, reality and purpose
through an at-once interdependence of each other.

 

Moving beyond a 2,450-year-old era

The Art and Science of Blinking

Around 2,450 years ago the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea was perhaps the first to methodically question a simple fact of life - how do we physically move, such as when blinking an eye, running, or simply falling down?

Culturally we are about to fall off a philosophical cliff. Fortunately, a safe landing in a far more compassionate, sane and exciting world awaits those who come to the edge with the understanding of how to fly.

His questions and arguments, which have become widely known as Zeno's Paradoxes, pointed to the seemingly logical impossibility of the everyday experience of physical movement.

His considerations have perplexed and troubled philosophers and scientists even since. Various assumptions that underpin our modern technologies and sciences were taken for granted. We take for granted that there is always a physical cause for every physical effect - as exemplified by scientists researching to find physical cures for disease, cancer and viruses; and to find the physical genes or brain cells responsible for thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and the experience of love, creativity and joy. 

Now, with the advances in the field of quantum physics, we know that a 2,450 year era is nearing its end .. an era in which it has been assumed that our physical brains, bodies and the entire physical universe is continuously existent. An era in which each part (atom, virus, cell, organ, person, planet) was assumed to be continuously existent and functional, with every part contributing to the running of, or dysfunction of, the machinery of life.

We stand at the edge of a grand new understanding of our universe, and ourselves. As Visa International founder Dee Hock foretells, a new era

is struggling to be born -- a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed."

 

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