Wonderful discussion with your children. Martin
On Dec 6, 2018 7:20 AM, "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi All, 
>
>   Thanks for these wonderful reflections. Corinne, I love the sound of the "Kalogenic Universe." 
>
>   My reaction to the Church of Belief site was split. First, as folks who know me know, I am not a huge fan of "Church" in a traditional sense. Nor am I a huge fan of post-modernism. And I did not see anywhere in the "doctrine" the relationship between postmodernism and science. And it had a cultish, creepy feel, at one level, which probably was mostly a projection as I looked more into it. 
>
> My positives, however, were more significant. Echoing Martin and Chance, folks need something to flock together...and, I would add, to do so with love in their hearts. Indeed, this is the best thing, IMO, about churches and religions. And, right now, this is something that we are socially losing. Our fragmented pluralistic society lacks a shared vision that folks can organize around with love in their hearts. 
>
> My family discussed this idea some. I asked Jon (17, senior) what a Church meant to him and he said a place where people worship a God. Andee did not like the idea or sound of a "Church," but liked the idea of an academy or school or movement of some sort. My daughter Lanie (who is 14 and a freshman) and I spent about 30 minutes talking about what we would "believe and value" if we started a "church-like" thing. After some time, we called it an "academy" and we would invest in that academy with "lived practices" that would have beliefs and values. The name we came up with was "The Academy for the Advancement of Science and Humanistic Living" (ASH worked as initials, because they are Andee's 😊). Here are some of the things we jotted down, broken down into beliefs, values, and practices, without much wordsmithing or worrying about overlap: 
>
> Beliefs 
> We "believe in" science and math as ways to get at truth about reality 
> The universe is evolving and changing, and has since the Big Bang/beginning 
> Humans are very small in some ways (e.g., space/time size relative to the vast vastness). 
> But human knowledge and human experience are very important--basically this is everything. (This and the former point gave us a nothing-everything tension). 
> Humans are changing the planet in many ways 
>
> Values 
> We want to increase or contribute to beauty, truth and goodness 
> We want to increase love 
> We want to decrease evil 
> We want to increase morality and wisdom 
> We noted my ultimate value justification, Be that which enhances dignity, well-being, and integrity 
>
> Practices (Activities, Seeking and Learning) 
> Being kind to others (and one's self) 
> Seeking a life filled with productive work, love, and play 
> Seeking meaning and purpose 
> Seeking ways to grow/develop/mature 
> Learning about science 
> Learning about the humanities 
>
> That was not a bad 30 minute exercise. 
>
> Best, 
> Gregg 
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> -----Original Message----- 
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Diop, Corinne Joan Martin - diopcj 
> Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2018 11:45 PM 
> To: [log in to unmask] 
> Subject: Re: Church of Belief Science? 
>
> I also found the Church of Belief Science really compelling-- except for the word "church" (a reaction similar to Chance's), the blatant recruitment for priests and donations on the home page, and that the canons must be upheld no matter what. The canons seem like a good code of ethics and not too difficult to agree about, except I had issue with the one on "Responsible Parenthood and Guardianship" that says, "A child is someone from conception in a maternal environment (or embryonic insertion in a maternal environment) up to, but not including, the age of 18" since it seems set up to be a bit anti-choice-- like suggesting the zygote is immediately considered someone and a child... it is also not clear why the brink of 18 is a magic cut off for childhood. 
>
> As for Bahai... I went to the Bahai Temple in Wilmette, IL out of curiosity, back when I was still more shopping around for community than I am now. The tour guide talked about the 9 entrances for the 9 major religions, a nice symbolism, but I have a good friend who is  neo-Pagan so I asked about the entrance for that or for indigenous religions. The guide said they value all religions for the stage they are at, and neo-Paganism would be like kindergarten. Bahai is the final stage, of course. That hierarchical thinking squelched any further interest. 
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> Anyway, back to the anti-choice thing... does anyone know Brian Henning or read his work? I remember reading his ideas about the Kalogenic Universe, about evolution generating beauty, and also about making choices that have the most overall beautiful results. Like when there are less unwanted births the murder rate goes down, so even though curbing births might not be an obviously beautiful choice at first, it might be overall. (I can't find the source for that anymore-- it's from the days of hard copies rather than scans and links... and I am thinking he may have rewritten that.) 
>
> I caught up on reading these posts and links instead of what I was supposed

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