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 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 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.

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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