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
-----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.
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 to be doing, but I am fairly certain that was the most kalogenic choice...
Thank you!
Corinne
Corinne Diop
Professor of Art
JMU
________________________________________
From: tree of knowledge system discussion [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Chance McDermott [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2018 9:30 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Church of Belief Science?
Thank you for sharing, Gregg. I like what Martin had to say about people needing to "flock" together towards an image, even if that image were to lead to a dead end.
I would be curious to know more about the success religions like Belief Science these days, as, right or wrong, I am hit with negative emotional reactions from three directions. The first is organized religion itself, which I have an aversive reaction towards due to being raised in a conservative Christian environment (this aversive reaction has matured into a healthy defensiveness rather than the hot antagonism I felt as a younger person, but nonetheless the gut response remains). Secondly, Scientology is the prominent example of how manufactured religions can go awry, and so "Belief Science" triggers that association. Thirdly, there is the ingrained concern about being drawn into small cults, and Belief Science gives me that feeling as well.
Again, these are emotional reactions from my own personal web of experiences and associations. On a descriptive level, the religion looks reasonable on paper. The organization seems self aware and transparent that Belief Science is there to meet a basic human need for belonging and community, and that Belief Science has been mindful about constructing itself in such a way that an in-group is achieved without creating a hostile relationship with the resulting out-group, and does so with a meta-awareness that beliefs are culturally contextual. It reminded me of a more secular Bahai.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Bah-25C3-25A1-2527-25C3-25AD-5FFaith&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=WHzD-_dBTq077iXFuqtPUd-4ARONlIkWP5zbFKpjfsc&s=p5QOi66CCDWHRRXnrivHeFTbM6biBt0rPbwdtPuzsyU&e=>
On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 7:32 AM martin johnson <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I would say "it is meaningful to have a belief in what is 'true'," in he comtext of saying that animals also function by images, imagives appear as imagination, animals traveling as a group to a destination where there is food, water, have an an image of where they are going, and a belief they will get they. It is crucial to survival. Having images and beliefs is crucial to human survival -- even though sometimes a group belief leads to a dead end. It is in nature and an essential to human functioning to have beliefs, and meaningfull. When a new truth arrises and displaces the old truth, that is part of the process of culture. This view depends on the assertion that reality only exists in contexts, that there is no objective truth, object in the sense of existing without context. It is hubris to say one has the TRUTH, which scientist sometimes say (as in physical scientist claiming a corner on how science has to be performed.) Martin Johnson
On Dec 4, 2018 10:21 AM, "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Hi List,
>
> I stumbled across this site, the Church of Belief Science and found it interesting. It adopts a postmodern, social constructivist view of religion and belief in general, meaning that the focus and meaning of truth is found in what people consensually agree to be true. The founder is a psychologist/counselor whom I had heard of, but I was not aware that he started this group.
>
>
>
> Best,
> Gregg
>
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