A BREAKTHROUGH OF REASONING CONSCIOUSNESS - THE MONKEY TRIAL IN TN of 1925....July 15, 2017

This was an amazing event(The Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 ) where natural reason pushed itself up through the prevailing and socially required religious superstitions of the past millennia.

Few things like the discovery that nature has all come down to us by the way of gradual and uncertain evolution- not some immediate creation of things by an exact pre-planned perfect design. This coming to consciousness in a little Tennessee town shook our Western mentality like few events ever have in America. (This story is told in the movie Inherit The Wind.) And even still this world view changing information has not soaked in to a relative large part of the American public. Strong political and religious mentalities still fearfully resent it. It is still resisted by what is called Intelligent Design, another name for Creationism, which is a direct confrontation of the findings and the spirit of serious science.

Evolution's Erratic Path Is Captured In Fossil Record.

If only those who still fear the implications of evolution could realize that evolution does not push one away from any real experience of God but simply opens the door to discovering more the actual nature of God. That God is not the all powerful perfect mind, and perfectly content within itself, being behind everything. But an imperfect evolving mind not yet completed while  still being an all pervading mysterious and  partially guiding  universal reality. A psychological reality continually  affecting us all and now earnestly seeking us humans to participate much more consciously and fully in what it started. We now can come to know that no long term epoch changing good can come to the world unless a respectful mutuality between God and Human begins to happen far more concretely than it ever has in the past.

So in ways far beyond the reasoned and rational even a little Tennessee town cannot resist the pressure of unconscious forces(that surely must come from the inner activity of a living and changing God) which nudge us all to let our idea of God change and evolve. Tiny Dayton, TN finds itself building a monument, like the ancients naturally did for their new gods, to push us all in the direction of a new epoch of Sacred -Human compassionate consciousness. This is a very hopeful sign that God's evolution continues to operate within us and seek our conscious awareness and participation.

At Site of Scopes Trial, Darrow Statue Belatedly Joins Bryan’s

A test of Bible Belt tolerance: Can the town of the Scopes “monkey trial” stomach a new statue of the famed agnostic lawyer Clarence Darrow?

nytimes.com

A NEWLY EVOLVING VIEW OF OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE...July 13, 2017

Carl Jung, child of a long line of protestant pastors, in 'Psychology and Western Religion' answers questions which I'm sure are  what my educated thoughtful Christian friends would put to me. His answers are very sane, logical and reasonable for he takes seriously that the Bible stories are speaking symbolic truths which are true at a deeper level than if we, as most still do, take these stories as primarily physical happenings. I often wish that more persons in my circles could find a way to consider the view point which such new assumptions offer. Many traditional questions are answered on this path and we are not called on to surrender other important kinds of knowledge that humans have gained, for example the general theory of scientific evolution and other sound scientific principles? Much of my life experience as preacher, science teacher, human development counselor and Hospice chaplain has been a search for how solid science and the religious stories I was taught can be harmonized for a more whole world view. Careful consideration of  these ideas and what follows express where I have found a significantly more authentic harmony.

Adam and Eve Harnessing The Living Serpent(A modern dream)

A great hurdle for 'believers', and ones who feel they must reject the idea of God, is to let loose of God being  imaged as an all powerful being that is absolutely good and perfect, and thus bearing no responsibility as a source of some of the suffering and sin in the world? Anything that brings suffering , chaos and harm to humans it is generally insisted is humanity's fault alone. If we would just get our act together all would be well we are told. God has nothing to change within itself unless we become blasphemers. And equally challenging from our orthodox views is   to embrace the concept, quite common in the Biblical narrative, of God needing the human; not simply because God is lonely but because God does not fully know itself, the same problem we humans, made in 'God's image' have in not fully knowing our deeper selves.

Only human consciousness, which must have- to God's incomparable  unfathomable credit- been  the original  dream and barely conscious hope  of God which has come true, can give God what God  needs within itself  to move the universe to a fuller more compassionate consciousness. And thus toward a truly better world that we claim to desire.

Moses Pleads With God To Be Compassionate

Every human, perhaps some more than others, can do his/her share in giving God this necessary gift. This involves the personal  sacrificial(for it involves a psychological/spiritual suffering which most of us never planned to acquire) gift of  our evolved consciousness. A consciousness,  which at least at some essential  moments,  is  more moral and compassionate than God's alone. Nothing else in nature can supply this for it is the human alone where such consciousness has evolved and we can assume  potentially  can continue to evolve. This is the gift  which the human ego consciousness has captured through thoughtful living and  suffering. And this is the human's needed gift to God  who obviously   remains forever ineffable and far 'more' than the human ego can ever comprehend. As God receives this gift the resulting  increased consciousness of God ( For no consciousness can develop without comparing itself to a consciousnesses outside itself.  So God needs the human. It is only our human bias and psychological need for God to be perfect, similarly as a developing child must think of its parents as perfect, that keeps us from realizing this is as true of God as of us.) can finally transform the world toward a much expanded 

Gospel speaks of Jesus and Serpent having something in common

peace,  love and truth. 

This approach finally begins to answer the question that humans have asked for millennia even on the best day, “Something seems wrong in the world.” And instead of blaming the human for it all(which is overwhelmingly not true or fair) a new understanding  can reach  us: God's and Human's  presently still evolving consciousness mutually share in the problem and solution. The problem, natural to both God and human, is about our not having yet arrived (No unbearable shame  in this for all is still evolving. There was not a time in the past when everything  or anyone was only good, ever.) at a strong enough ethical consciousness so that love  more truly has its way in God, nature and humans.

Abraham counseled God  to show compassion to Sodom.

A Slaughtering Tsunami Rightly Called An 'Act of God'?

We, I think, should consider that it likely raises the dignity and responsibility  of humans exponentially to know they are needed by God for his/her consciousness raising capacity (Surely granted,  is only there  by God's dreamlike foreknowledge, and only now made more conscious in both God and human.) than to only be loved by God. And similarly it is a greater compliment to be able to say to a friend or lover, " You have made me more conscious, aware of the fuller meanings of life. " than even to say, " l love you."  For the greatest most mature  loves in this world   are necessarily the product of  increased consciousness, whether that be God's or a Human Being's.

EVOLUTION'S NEW ERA OF COMPASSIONATE CONSCIOUSNESS.....June 28, 2017

The caring so needed in our shrinking world must go beyond caring for those we know and have actual ties to and investment in. The call is for caring for the collective human family and especially the most vulnerable and disenfranchised among us.

We need to resist in ourselves and our leaders that strong evolutionary survival tendency to achieve quality life only for ourselves and "our kind." Evolution was once necessarily and unconsciously barbaric in its survival of the most physically fit.

That need has changed. Human consciousness, not evolved to its present potential in past epochs, is now called on to shape the future of evolution. This shifts the need from viewing life as the "great competition" to the new epoch of cooperation and compassion toward all people and nature.
The hope-filled potential for a world-embracing compassionate consciousness I think has made a giant leap in the last century. Only humans can supply this feature to nature which alone leads to a more healed world. But we're not forced to embrace such a compassionate consciousness. We can instead stick to the well-worn paths of smaller mindedness.



'Times are a changin' and new times call for a tough but compassionate and wise consciousness. These are the new key for the survival of our species and planet. The great world religions all point to such an era of surviving compassion. Are we already too late in receiving the saving compassionate consciousness which has been a cosmic goal of evolution for millennia?

A REFRESHING CONNECTION WITH MY RELIGIOUS HERITAGE... Landon Saunders Sermon. May 20, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwk8ifFxS5w   (CLICK ON VIDEO)

PERSONAL REFLECTION : I came across this 'preaching' video the other day. That may be enough to make one not want to look further. "Preaching" has become such a negative force in many ways and places, being either irrelevant or humanly divisive. The discovery of this video is very personal to me for it is the 'teaching person' in my original religious heritage(from which fate compelled a separation) who seemed to have the most specific transforming influence on me of anyone. He seemed, more than three decades, ago to have a 'Bible' message that transcended what had been emphasized to me in the years before. I 'heard' something different but timeless from him.

I've not had communication with Landon Saunders since those influential days when his teaching emphasis lead me in turn to other influential voices far outside my heritage. I've wondered since those days if I'd still hear Landon as one who speaks with the same transformative kind of words as I heard then? I'm not disappointed as I watch this video. He may not say things the way I would now but I am not embarrassed to recommend any person to hear this in its context of a 'church of Christ' liberal arts Universtiy. It makes me proud that my original heritage produced such a person with such preaching words. I'm sure his well chosen words would do no harm to anyone and just may bring something that can help guide some others as his message did me way back when.

I keep in mind Landon is speaking to the very church folks in which I was born , raised and was a minister for until mid life. When I hear him now( he and I both are old men) I have confidence he is doing a good thing for those in my beloved 'church of Christ' heritage. This is very refreshing to me.

Note: The only thing that I would add is that 'loving neighbors' seems to insist that we have a keen desire that any persons or groups be just as valued by and equal under the law as we who are more privileged. This means an interest and an outward stance that goes beyond just our personally treating all with mutuality and respect whom we actually encounter. That is an interest and goal that all persons and groups would become as protected, made as safe and have opportunities as any in the mainstream are.

JAMES COMEY, AND HIS STORY, IS LIKELY A TURNING POINT IN MR TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY... May 10, 2017

James Comey, Former director of the F.B.I.

I suspect this is a man, and trained experienced professional,  who tries to do the right thing.  I would not speculate what this turning of the Presidency  will be. But it seems like something has legally developed that  no amount of bullying or name calling will be effective, even for a president. Mr. Comey  appears to have stood up to the president when that is what his job description required. I hope there are many more such people scattered around in high places ..integrity it's called.

PRESISDENT TRUMP EXPERIENCES STRONG CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITS... May 17, 2017

Something very important and very American I think happened today. Our president(from illness, ignorance or malevolence?) , with the power the office gives, had been able to use the nation, world and our laws and institutions as a toy for his own personal whims. It appeared nothing could stop the horrible train wreck from reaching its destination.

Now with the unexpected and timely appointment of a special prosecutor even the president has hit a wall that every human must hit in our own way: The reality that there is some impersonal law or restriction that is far bigger than our personal ego and will. This in a very rich sense can be a primary religious or spiritual experience. It is how genuine humility is formed in the human personality.

This event today gives the nation and the president a chance to return to solid ground which had been far left behind for months. I fear Mr. Trump is not interested in or has value for real solid ground but instead chooses time and again to live in in his own untrue constructions of reality. And carry many others with him.


Hopefully this sobering but necessary kind of process is one every American and every human can learn from. This 'hitting the wall' is a fundamental nature of our personal and collective human situation.

We can be grateful for the one who had the political will to make this personal decision - Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and for Robert S. Mueller III , the special prosecutor, who seems very prepared by life and training to take on this important task for the nation. He is a professional in that important sense of being ethically disciplined, something tragically missing in President Trumps character. He surely deserves our support and prayers as the nation seeks to find grounded stability. We were likely headed for something worse than most of us have let ourselves imagine.

There can be little doubt that it is the steady professional 'best and changing truth' reporting by our national major news outlets and papers that have been instrumental in this happening. The 'mainstream media' in its imperfections has kept before us the issues of Russia involvement in our free elections and the dynamics involved in the president firing James Comey, head of the F.B.I. Without a free and straight shooting press such turns toward greater national truth would not happen when powers such as the white house or other would seek to cloud it or cover it up.

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A JUNGIAN TYPE VIEW OF THE LINCOLN AND CHRIST STORIES.......March 20, 2017

I'm at Cooks Chili Parlor on West North Grand Ave in Springfield, IL. I'm having oatmeal and homemade bread.I Hope to not bite my lip as it is still numb from the dentist.

I revisited Lincoln's tomb just now. I'm struck again , "My God what consciousness has wrought." I know none of us can have made conscious more than the tip of the iceberg of  what Carl Jung calls the Collective Unconscious. This is a present day psychological way of thinking about the source of all that is or can be, of God or the Self. We all can and do experience its contents becoming conscious, some probably more than others.

This process can be the source of major life changes in personal and collective views of life and the world. It can also be a dangerous overwhelming of the far smaller but amazingly  essential  conscious human ego.

A Suffering Luncoln

While again trying to comprehend the great moral advance in American culture heralded by Lincoln's courageous encounter with life's tensions; I felt, like so many have, the rush of archetypal, sacred like, emotions.

With that stimulation fresh I'd like to describe some basic premises of the work of Swiss psychistrist Carl Jung, a resource that much helps me explain some of my own experiences and unexpected changes in personal points of view.

What Jung  may not have always made clear to the typical reader is that the complicated mythological development he describes(Such as in his very late little book "Answer To Job")  which resulted in the Christ Story becoming culturally universal- was weaved, from archetypal energies, by the not perfectly developed conscious mind of the Collective Unconscious. Not by human plan but something beyond human consciousness, yet even that great God  power was not fully conscious of itself.

From exceptional  leaps in personal human consciousness, such as Jung experienced, some have in recent centuries been able to 'see' or comprehend that psychological fact(The imperfect God consciousness) and also help make it conscious to others.

This in turn comes to  mean that 'God' , in God's need, at times is  'heard',  in its own suffering tensions,  by the human. And, like us when we are really heard,  God has been made more morally conscious of Itself. The Biblical record as a whole describes this process of the evolution or transformation of  the God consciousness. As it also shows the same happening to the human who contains  within ourselves the full and exact image of the creator. This is the psychological situation for  both the Divine and all humans. This is an insight not possible until modern times and still only partially conscious.

What we call God and Human are  seen working collaboratively for the increased consciousness of both. This is to be expected because the human really  is made in 'God's image', both it's perfection and imperfection. This idea remains a great challenge for our usual Western religious point of view. It feels at first too much like blasphemy  and stirs a reaction of guilt and fear. But it actually offers a sounder  understanding I think of many urgent questions and inner disturbances. And such an idea honors an enhanced more conscious  fullness of God which is  so needed for an already begun new epoch of global human evolution.

The imperfect mind of evolution, of God, (Think of it as like God's ego)was not fully conscious of its own creativity and much more. Many of the most remembered  Old Testament  stories picture this lack of ethical consistency in the God image of Yahweh. Such as his quickness to hot anger, thin skinned  jealousy, ignoring its own ethical laws,  blaming the human for all errors and extreme punishments of any who offend him. These are ever  present along with a genuine desire to be loving, faithful and dependable.  And the God  is pictured as being talked out of such  moral lapses by the cautious words and better judgment of his human creatures such as Abraham, Moses and Job.  The result always being that the God is influenced to a higher ethical decision, God 'changes' its imperfect mind.

These images of God's imperfection  are  being noticed by many and are  seen  at first in direct and troubling opposition to the image of God as transformed and morally elevated in Jesus the God-Man  of the New Testament.

 God's highest creation, the human,  is described in the Biblical narative  as made in God's spiritual/psychological image. And  the human  ego we know from honest personal adult experience  is also not at first conscious of the  full meaning of its own creative works and behaviors.( This is a common confession of many of the world's most creative geniuses and more conscious very ordinary people.)

It is as if God and Human are dependent on each other's  conscious feedback and mirroring for mutual  fuller moral and self awareness.

Similarly, on a smaller scale, this same process is true of all culture changing events, such as  the Lincoln story. In this same way we humans are first affected unawares by  spontaneous and  strong  rich emotion by the activated archetypes  of the Collective  Unconscious(Which are always unconsciously dormant within us all. Much like the biological instinct is already present for a bird to build a very specific kind of nest.) And then, maybe now or  later, we become conscious that we  have been so affected by such archetypal autonomous energies..

 This way we come to know, be conscious of,  something  important about the nature of our personal archetypal 'religious ' like experiences (ones that are far broader than  only formal organized creedal religion and which always  go beyond  our rational thinking). These experiences  are what  make and  shape the meaning of our fully human lives.  By having some awareness of these natural internal processes we become more conscious beings. And we can trust the same is true of all other humans  as well.

The Empty Tomb

Being somewhat conscious of these internal processes need not take away the wonder(numenosity) or authority of such experiences.  But allows us to know the natural psychological principles underlying such emotional life changing  and enriching phenomena. And the great epoch making evolutionary ransformations they bring, for good and bad, to humanity's course. (We still most humbly know these living internal autonomous   factors, called archetypes,  are  far beyond our most conscious rational grasp. And we have no way of knowing, and may never, the why of these things.)

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: There are very practical and needed implications of thinking of God and Human this way. Here are a few:

1. It helps us move away from the archaic notion that God is a 'being' out there much like us only far more powerful and perfect  in its morality and use of its power. Such a God is completely unaccountable and as the Bible stories show can often get as off track ethically as the human creature. It means that everything that goes wrong is not always and only human failure, though there is plenty of that.  This outgrown image of God  is called an anthropomorphic view of the divine. Science and especially Quantum Physics has pushed modern  humans to move to a much broader view of God where God is fully present within us and also  embedded  in all that is beyond us.

2. It does not mean that God can't be thought of  as that to which we can  personally relate but it also means that God is an embedded  continually active mind  factor in all of creation and  in the deepest strata of our human Collective Unconsciousness;  that the Collective Unconscious, which can now be explored,  is what most reflects the reality of God to modern persons. This means we are all connected to God similarly and can potentially become more conscious of what that connection means in terms of the meaning  and challenges of  our personal and collective  human life.

3. This view of God not  being a perfect mind but an evolving one is not at odds with real science like anthropomorphism is. It is very consistent with the central science theorem of universal evolution. This means that one thing  we can always count on is that everything which  has come from God is in a state of evolving, of changing from one level to another over, what seems to us,  long periods of time. Some more progressive  traditional theology has accepted evolution about most parts of the universe but not  usually about the deepest origins of the universe or what we call God. It is logical that if the creation bears the image of the creator that,  like the creation,  God also is an evolving reality. And as described above that involves the mind of God and the ethical moral consciousness of God; that it is changing. The changes are  potentially  toward the better  and  in need of evolving human consciousness to help God in God's development just as the human is need of reflections of the divine in order to become more morally conscious,  more fully human and divine.  It is a mutually dependent collaboration of God and Human that is so needed to address the  problems the world urgently faces.

Without such a potential change  the imperfect human consciousness, with its increased power of the past several centuries,  is nearly certain to destroy both itself and the creation. This is the path we are most noticeably on  at present.  Peace on Earth can be a meaningful hope only to the extent that the moral consciousness of both God and Human are making progress through much creative human and divine suffering.

4. This view means the  idea and experience of God , which can only be carried by the human consciousness, can affect  humans who are not moved by any  of the forms of institutional religion  toward any 'belief' in God. This opens up  a way , without negating their best thinking or their conscience, to consider a God image maybe for the first time. This would mean such persons could confess their authentic hunch of something that is  'more than'  personal or collective human ego as a best explanation of  the fullness of reality. That the universe and human experience is not simply physicality and  rational materialism.

5. It  implies that more traditional religious people would no longer live with the motivation , " I'll do good so that I might be rewarded now or later by the Great God."  This motivation is of a lower  more self centered  level and does not really  give the human something to aspire to with the most valued parts of themselves. It would instead make ones motivation to live, strive and yearn , " to be honest, loving , compassionate and fair" in our dealings so that which is God becomes more that way also. Alone our human  striving may be seen as futile but with also an increasing moral consciousness of the God factor it can become a practical hope of a new epoch.  This all means that God needs us  humans as  much as we need God, and  that all of life is  for the purpose of expanded moral consciousness via the Human-God interdependence .  This world view  offers a genuine hope and reason to work for the goal of  Peace on Earth and good will to all humankind.