Interesting piece on AlertNet discussing a duality of materialism and spiritualism

[54anickel]

http://www.alternet.org/story/145394/the_big_theories_underwriting_society_are_crashing_all_around_us_--_are_you_ready_for_a_new_world?page=entire


The Big Theories Underwriting Society Are Crashing All Around Us -- Are You Ready for a New World?

snip>

TM: I hear you expressing a kind of duality: "We were paying attention to matter, now we've got to pay attention to the invisible." But holism doesn't pay attention to one or the other, it realizes they are in fact the same.

BL: Exactly. That's the conclusion we come to. If it sounded like we were emphasizing the spiritual over the material, it was only because that's the piece that's missing in today's world: the piece that says "Wait there's more to us than this physical plane."

Look over history. The primary differences between civilizations is whether they emphasize the spiritual or the material. With animism, both were the same thing. We're coming back to that. After taking civilization to the spiritual realm under the Church and then into the material realm under the sciences, science and spirituality are coming back to a midpoint, recognizing that they are both critical.

snip>

TM: You say that from a position of science, not from a position of belief. We've talked about two of the false beliefs: Newtonian physics, and the belief that genes control our lives. What are others?

BL: The premises of Darwinian evolution: that random mutations got life going and that life is based on a struggle for survival of the fittest. Those are beliefs that influence our culture well beyond the realm of science. As a consequence, we live in a world based on competition and struggle. But we have to ask: Is the world really that way or did our beliefs create that impression?

Now we learn that the entangled community called the biosphere is driven not by competition but by cooperation and community. This means our competing has been anti-evolutionary.

Humans evolved over a million years ago. What's evolving now is not the individual human, but the living superorganism called humanity. We are all cells in the body of one living thing. So we need to come together and recognize our unity.

The cells making up humanity will keep killing each other -- as in an autoimmune disease -- until we realize that we're all part of one organism and cooperation is key. The way we live in our world today mimics some of our biggest health issues: autoimmune diseases like arthritis, Alzheimer's and cancer. The fundamental underlying issue in almost all illnesses today is stress. When stress hormones are released into your body, the same hormones that get you ready for fight and flight, also shut off the immune system.

more...

[FirstLight]

1. fascinating

I really dig holistic theory. I had a friend who is a Chiropractor explain it to me like this: our whole body is curled up in your ear (oriental med), found to relate to the soles of your feet and plams of your hands(reflexology)...so that every cell is actually a mandelbrot/holisitc replica of the entire being (think of our DNA/rNA)...This is why even healing techniques like soft touch can work, all you have to do is convince ONE cell that it is in alignment and healthy, and the rest of your being aligns INSTANTLY. It isn't even at light speed or just in phermones through the bloodstream, it is superconscious activity.

Like when you get a good adjustment in chiropractic and you feel the 'zing' through your whole body...? ya, that's your cells tansmitting that 'knowing' through your being...

what an amazing thing if allopathic medicine even beleived a fraction of this and allowed for more active belief work and gentle healing touch in treatments...


eta:
I also love the idea of using this in community building. I am working on some projects in community right now and will have to ues the theory and see how it already applies :)

[beam me up scottie]

2. pfft

Psychobabble to indulge the reality-challenged.

[Tace]

9. The Lips Of Wisdom

"The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding." - The Kybalion.

[beam me up scottie]

13. "When they were handing out religions you must have been out taking a whizz."

~Homer Simpson

[Odin2005]

17. Self-serving elitist bull.

[Odin2005]

3. Wow, a lot of New Age word salad there.

[Hestia]

4. It's actually quite old - Hermeticism, Gnosticism, etc. It's the Western

Mystery Tradition which is quite fluid still today. " The ALL is MIND, The Universe is Mental"

from the article:

In the first six years of your life, you see the stresses and struggles your parents go through, and that becomes a behavioral program in your subconscious mind. Then when you're older, you say, "Let's have a life that's wonderful and joyous and happy." But 95 percent of your life is coming from behaviors downloaded from your parents.

Really? I think as an adult, in contemplation and "knowing thyself", you can definitely shake off the parental constraints. Isn't that called adulthood?

Ancient precepts teach that we are in a collective, living in a web of sorts. They are discussing the same thing, but I really like the body analogy, it makes it easier for people to understand.

In your body, no particular cells go hungry. Every cell must be fed for the body to be in harmony. When we begin to treat all humans as cells in one body, and make sure that they all get the basics in life, we create the foundation on which to build an exciting future.

Every cell counts. Every human counts.

Excellent.

[darkstar3]

5. WTF?

This guy wants to call Newtonian physics and Darwinian evolution "false beliefs"?

I think this comic is very apt here...Would that Science Cops were real...

[beam me up scottie]

6. "scientific molestation"

Science Cop: "Willful ignorance of reality, intellectual assault with intent to duncify and scientific molestation"

Perp: "That's not true! I love science!"

Science Cop: "You've got a funny way of showing your love" !

:rofl:

[tinrobot]

8. Did you read the article?

He's not denying the laws of physics. This is how he defines "false belief"

"The Newtonian belief that the universe is a physical machine takes our attention away from the invisible realm. We focus on material acquisition as a representation of how well we're doing in our lives. We take the earth and the environment apart seeking more matter. The more matter you have, the more effective you are in this world. He who dies with the most toys wins."

I'm not convinced that Newton leads directly to materialism, but he does have a point about our increasingly materialistic nature.

[Odin2005]

14. It's nothing but a strawman mixed in with an "argument to consequences" fallacy.

We are no more materialistic now then we were 400 years ago, the difference is that industrialization as allowed the average person to afford to buy more stuff. Nothing to do with Newton.

[tinrobot]

15. Yes, but Newton's laws enabled industrialization.

The Industrial Revolution happened because we finally understood the laws of matter and motion.

[Odin2005]

16. But that's not the point.

The claim is that the belief in Newtonian Physics is the psychological cause of consumerism, which is nonsense.

[darkstar3]

18. Did you read the comic?

The writer really is reflected in the crab.

[DeSwiss]

7. Interesting looking article....

...from what I've read so far. I'm bookmarking it for a further read later.

- Thanks!

K&R

[babsbunny]

10. Loves it!

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. I *think* they're calling for a greater welfare state, or perhaps a socialist or communist society

but they've dressed it up in an extended biological metaphor that actually tells us squat about society. They muddy their own message so effectively, it ends up, as someone said, as word salad.

Unfortunately, the article constantly talks about 'spirit' without giving us an idea of what they mean by that, either. All in all, it's meaningless.

[omega minimo]

19. Spirit permeates matter, interconnects the Whole

"Humans evolved over a million years ago. What's evolving now is not the individual human, but the living superorganism called humanity. We are all cells in the body of one living thing. So we need to come together and recognize our unity."

[darkstar3]

20. Yeah, good luck proving that one. n/t

[Silent3]

22. It's not a thing you prove, silly! It's a thing you say...

...because it's warm and fuzzy and all enlightened-ish sounding! And if you don't agree, you're a close-minded, unfeeling stooge of the status quo who's standing in the way of a beautiful human future full of aroma therapy and Reiki massages for everyone!

[darkstar3]

24. Well done.

:thumbsup:

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. So it could be:

photons
gravity
the luminiferous ether
space
something else

That's not much help in defining spirit, really.

"One definition of life, albeit not a particularly useful one, might run something like this: “Life is that property which a being will lose as a result of falling out of a cold and mysterious cave thirteen miles above ground level.” This is not a useful definition, ‘A’ - because it could equally well refer to the subject’s glasses if he happens to be wearing them, and ‘B’ - because it fails to take into account the possibility that the subject might happen to fall onto, say, the back of an extremely large passing bird."

Douglas Adams

[omega minimo]

23. It could be

thought of as Bohm's Implicate, the Void from which all arises (Explicate) and to which all returns.

How are they doin on that Theory of Everything?

What animates life, animates you? Are you a biological machine? Do you feel interconnected with nature and the world around you, your family...?

[Silent3]

12. A recipe for New Age-y "wisdom"

1) Grossly oversimplify something like evolutionary theory. (It's all about struggle and competition!)

2) Characterize the whole world as laboring under that oversimplification and patterning everything it does around it.

3) Take a trite realization that escapes ever so slightly from your own oversimplification (Hey! What about cooperation!?) and act as if it's a Profound New Thought that the entire world (not just yourself) is just waking up to.

4) Characterize your "amazing" new idea as part of a philosophical revolution that's sweeping the world, ready to bring about a New Age of Enlightenment.

5) Lather. Rinse. Repeat.