Cool thoughts from my forum and fb friend, David L. Allen:
“I took me awhile, but I have come to a place where I feel the presence of a non-supernatural god-type non-being sense of oneness. Ain't that a mouthful?
I can tell you about it, but you can only get there on your own. No one can convince another of what to believe. Right? You either believe something or you don't. The only way to really believe something is to arrive at the conclusion on your own.
Here is my summary of 5 Things. After this list, read on if you want to know how I got there.
1. Everything in the Universe is integrally connected through particle physics and, therefore, is one. The Universe is God. It is both the Creator and the Creation.
2. Our consciousness, as thinking beings, is part of this oneness and compassion is its highest achievement. Our consciousness is the mind of God.
3. Morality is the direct result of the application of compassion. Our compassion is the origin of the Golden Rule.
4. As everything is connected, when I look out at Nature, I see an extension of myself. Every thing in the Universe is worthy of our compassion.
5. By extension, when I take care of others, I am taking care of myself, quite literally, and God (the integrated Universe) is taking care of me.
I believe that everything is physically connected through physics. That is, quantum physics.
On an ordinary level, Newtonian physics, every thing, living and non-living, is treated as a separate object. When the force of one object hits another object, it causes the other object to move, like a billiard ball.
That's our everyday perceived reality. You are an object. I am an object. If I run into you, it will likely hurt both of us.
Instead of thinking of the Universe as a place with a bunch of things floating in it (like a bowl of soup, the Milky Way galaxy would be like a potato in it), I think of the Universe as soap bubble. With the soup, I can take a potato out and look at it. It is a separate thing from the soup, even if it is an important ingredient in making a good soup.
On a soap bubble, we can also see things floating around: rainbow-colored swirls. However, you can not take a swirl off of the bubble and examine it. The whole bubble would collapse. It looks separate. it even seems to move independently, but it is completely integrated. It is all made from the same stuff. Unlike a potato in a bowl of soup, the idea that the swirl is a separate thing is an illusion.
Likewise, all the things in the Universe are completely integrated. Every thing is made of the same stuff.
I am not a human being in the Universe. I *am* the Universe. So, are you. So is this rock and that horse. I can not be taken out of the Universe to be examined by a supernatural being.
In my ordinary reality, I feel pretty lucky to be one of the clumps of particles that reside around here that can think. In fact, I feel a responsibility to take care of the rest our Universe. As a thinking being, I know that animals can suffer and that our well-being relies on the health of other living and non-living things, most of which are incapable of defending themselves. And I don't want others to suffer, because I know that it really sucks to suffer. That is compassion.
The conclusion is that if we are all integrally connected by physics and we are psychologically connected by compassion, then every good thing I do for others, I do for myself. And the Universe. And when my friend does a good thing for a dying child in Haiti, he has done that for me. And the Universe.”
~ David L. Allen
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5 comments:
Interesting. Sounds very pantheistic, except I don't think there's an absence of rational thinking, so more New Agey.
Still leaves a few questions, though. Where did the Universe and everything come from?
Leaves lots of questions. As to where the universe came from, I am sure David would say that he — like everyone else that has ever lived — doesn’t have a clue.
It's rather annoying when there's absolutely no answer to a question and one must merely have faith that one's belief system will provide an answer at some undetermined time in the future.
I you’ll find that part of maturing is learning to live comfortably with unanswered questions. Though many people just aren’t wired for that and I think those people tend to gravitate toward religions and the answers they provide.
See, I tend to think that those who are searching for truth should follow the facts, wherever they lead. Not filter out the facts to mean what they want to mean based on presuppositions, which a lot of people do. If there's a question that seems to be an unanswered question, a lot of times, if all of the possible answers are really, really considered, then one of them might turn out to be right.
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