Will the upheaval in which the world finds itself ever come to an end? The answer is Yes!, as youll see in these continuing excerpts from The Storm Before the Calm, in which youll discover the role you can play in the times just ahead.... A formula that works Change does not come easy in any field. As Max Planck, one of the fathers of quantum physics, once observed: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Or, as more whimsically paraphrased, “Science advances one funeral at a time.” (Source: Wikiquotes—en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck). Still, at least Science eventually questions the basis on which a scientific conclusion was reached and, using this device, it one day comes up with even more answers, more brilliant solutions, more magnificent and miraculous outcomes. Likewise, when Medicine comes up with an answer, those who engage in Medicine in any serious way eventually question the basis on which that conclusion was reached. And using this device, they come up with even more answers, more brilliant solutions, more magnificent and miraculous outcomes. And so, too, is it in Technology. This is a formula that works. Yet with regard to the answers that we derive from Religion and from our other Cultural Beliefs, it doesn’t matter how many funerals there have been. It doesn’t matter how many generations have passed. Most people simply refuse to question the prior assumption. In fact, many have been known to declare that to do so is as act of apostasy. This is the great tragedy of humanity. This is the greatest stumbling block of our species. We have made breathtaking, almost unbelievable, advances in technology, medicine, and science precisely because those who practice these disciplines have ultimately avoided this stumbling block, even if it did take time. Over decades and centuries they have been willing to make one key statement that most people who are officially associated with religious or cultural beliefs dare not make: It is possible that all we think we know could be wrong. At the very least it could be incomplete. If humanity would engage in a global conversation about our religions, our beliefs, and our Cultural Story that began with this key statement, that conversation could result in new ideas that could produce new solutions that would make the advances we have seen in medicine, science, and technology look like child’s play. We would create the life for which we have dreamed, the outcomes for which we were destined, the human experience for which we were designed. Many people are actually producing this outcome for themselves individually right now, in the present moment. If they all simply started talking about it, they could spread this outcome to our entire species within one generation—one conversation at a time. So yes, I think it would be wonderful for all of us to talk. Let me put it more urgently. I think we need to talk. Not quarrel, not argue, not fight, not contradict or debate or dispute or wrangle, just converse—speaking with a gentle passion, listening with an open mind, sharing with a tolerant and tender heart, exploring with a generous spirit, and concluding with a willing invitation to not let the conversation end, but to talk and to share again, as part of an ongoing exchange that need never end. Humanity can create, if it so chooses, a new Cultural Story—a fresh set of beliefs about who we are and why we are here and what is really “so” about each other and about life…and yes, even a new—or, to put it a better way, an enlarged—set of beliefs about God, so that Divinity may finally be rendered functional, and not merely doctrinal. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Check out the website that has been specially created to allow the conversation that has been started here to continue. Go to TheGlobalConversation and see what you think.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:00:01 +0000
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