Evolving Continents and Oceans

Senior University

2008

Evolving Continents and Oceans

Major Issues at stake

These are the four controverted areas of science and religion:1. cosmology (origins/big bang)2. quantum physics (micro-physics and necessity)3. evolution (developmentalism)4. human nature (environment and genetics)

Gilbertsons in front of Mt. McKinley

Sessions Overview:

We will view Creation and Cosmos as

1. Story (Assembly Assertions)

2. Record (No assembly required)

3. Chronicle (Some assembly required)

4. Account (Lots of assembly required)

5. Sketch (Full assembly required)

6. Epic (Assembly on steroids required)

Let’s have FUN:

Darrel’s five biases:

1. I will not hesitate to focus narrowly on science and religion,

2. challenge their assumptions,

3. respect all convictions,

4. expand boundaries, and

5. express my own faith in God.

More of what Darrel is up to

And two goals:

1. to re-frame the issues/questions and

2. to consider an alternative approach to current solutions.

Dr. Myth—Joseph Campbell

Aspects of MODELS

1. Data dependent—basis of all discovery2. Coherent—consistent with other

accepted theories3. Scope—comprehensive enough to meet

current need4. Fertile—sparks imagination and leads to

other discoveries

Comments on Religious God-talk

1. No definition of this human phenomena will be accepted by everyone.

2. A working definition is not impossible.

3. Our working definition of religion—the vehicle to express the deepest yearning for human connection with the universe.

Three Elements of Religion

1. Narrative as content

2. Ritual as theater/belief in action

3. Experience as function

Six Types of Religious Experience

1. Numinous of the Holy2. Mystical of Oneness3. Transformative and Re-orienting4. Courage in the face of suffering and

death5. Obligations (sometimes heroic) of ethical6. Awe at beauty and elegance of nature

How did the culture wars begin?

1. Loss of intellectual respectability

2. Concern for becoming technologically anachronistic

3. Fear of loss of status—or power and authority—in heirarchically inferior in the “Great Chain of Being”

Goethe

“Zum Erstaunen ben ich da”

(I am here to wonder)

Darrel’s DAFFY-nitions:

Cosmology—the origins of the earth Creation—a view of the cosmos as Gift Creator—Giver of all things Teleology—assignation of purpose Mythos—assignation of meaning Life—biotic mass including humans Faith—hermaneutic of trust in Creator Eschatology—endview of cosmos

Creation in Deep Space

                           

Spitzer Space Telescope infrared image of billowing clouds of dust ablaze with the light of newborn stars, described as the Mountains of Creation, in a region of deep space some 7,000 light years away from Earth.

Creation as STORY

STORY appears to be universal

Used extensively by anthropology to infer culture and its functions

Replete in “theology” of Bible

Assets of STORY Model

1. Descriptive—places tribe and person in the largest possible context—seasons, geography, major symbolic content

2. Prescriptive—generates core taboo/rules, authority, and hierarchical patterns

3. Didactic/pedagogical—except for catastrophic interruption, provides challenges and answers/lessons

Deficits of STORY Model

1. Speculative—often fanciful with little connection to “facts on the ground”

2. Tradition bound—provides no continuing method for revision or adjustment

3. Elitist—often the vehicle for power in shamanism, authoritarian structures, etc

Australian Aboriginal: The Dreamtime

In the beginning the earth was a bare plain. All was dark. There was no life, no death. The sun, the moon, and the stars slept beneath the earth. All the eternal ancestors slept there, too, until at last they woke themselves out of their own eternity and broke through to the surface.

Dreamtime continued:

Continued:

For the Dreamtime does not merely lie in the distant past, the Dreamtime is the eternal Now. Between heartbeat and heartbeat, the Dreamtime can come again.

About Babylonian "Epic of Creation -- Enuma Elish"

Supposedly was written no later than the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in the 12th century BCE. Drawing some new light on the ancients, Henry Layard found within the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, texts that were not unlike the Genesis creation in the Bible.

The Babylonian God finished his work within the span of six tablets of stone.

The last and seventh stone exalted the handiwork and greatness of the deity's work.

Babylonian Epic

The First Tablet: When in the height heaven was not named,

And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them bothTheir waters were mingled together, etc

Written on seven tablets; each is between 115 and 170 lines long. Some portions of the tablets are illegible.

Turtles Model

The BIG questions are does the universe have direction, and if so, does it have purpose.

There are four possible options or tentative “answers” to the great questions.

Recent Shift of Zeitgeist

My reading of the current cultural landscape and an opinion about opportunities

Sessions Overview:

We will view Creation and Cosmos as

1. Story (Primal view)

2. Record (Literal view)

3. Chronicle (Allegorical view)

4. Account (Blended view)

5. Sketch (Minimalist view)

6. Epic (Emergent view)

Share your comments/questions

Remember the goals of our SU course are:

Goal # 1—Civil and courteous discourse

Goal # 2—Impartiality (to the degree we are able to recognize our own biases) and

Goal # 3—Interactive class participation