The meaning of life? Some say it’s 42. Mom says “wholeness.” And things about “ultimate reality.” What does Dad say?

047.mp3 (42m 20MB)

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  • 0m: Musical intro by Skytrekg! Click to follow him on Twitch! An amazing traditional (oil, guache, etc) artist, guitarist, and singer.
  • Dad starts with a reading from the Center for Christogenesis which is a “bold synthesis of religion and science that reflects the pan-psychic nature of our cosmos.”
  • At ~28m, Dad refers to the Humanist Manifesto II.

Transcript (via OpenAI Whisper):

We can talk about anything you want, cause JFLAWNCE is ignorant. Welcome to JFLAWNCE’s Ignorance, episode 47, The Meaning of Life. We were on vacation down in Costa Rica, and my parents started talking religion, which they often do, and so I threw some lapel mics on them. So the audio quality’s not great, but this is a typical conversation when my parents and I are in the same room. So enjoy it, and enjoy knowing the meaning of life. Free podcast, and you get the meaning of life. Aren’t you lucky? If you’d like to call in to the show, you can leave us a voicemail at 1-402-577-0117. So for you, what? Oh, ow. So for me, there’s a difference between framing stuff under the title of ultimate reality than there is framing it under the title of religion. Because for me, religion implies particularly ritual, hierarchy, exclusivity, in a way that ultimate reality doesn’t imply. So for me, to talk about ultimate reality doesn’t equate with talking about religion. Are we on? Yeah, you’re on. Okay. So, I have an interest in this organization called Christogenesis.org. And the Center for Christogenesis envisions a bold synthesis of religion and science that reflects the panpsychic nature of our cosmos, a universe fundamentally characterized by both mind and matter. Teilhard de Chardin explored this relationship deeply, warning that divorcing science from the religious quest for ultimate meaning could lead to our destruction. Teilhard recognized that science, despite its claims of pure objectivity, is driven by deeply spiritual impulses, impulses like the passion for discovery, belief in human perfectibility, the search for unity, and the drive for human betterment. The forces that propel scientific research when oriented toward totality and future possibility are fundamentally religious in nature. By freeing religion from rigid dogmatic systems and recognizing its natural role in cosmic development, we can see how both science and religion pursue ultimate meaning and unity. Science alone, with its analytical and fragmentary approach, cannot satisfy our deepest yearning for meaning. Its powerful capacity for analysis must be balanced by a more holistic, global way of thinking, one that embraces religious insight. What we need, Teilhard argued, is a dual transformation, a science charged with faith and a religion that recognizes itself as integral to scientific understanding. He envisioned a new religious-scientific synthesis, born from the hybridization of those seemingly opposite domains. Through this integration, scientific work assumes the dignity of sacred duty, becoming like religion itself, charged with the promise of future possibility. Thomas Berry, the late visionary geologian, spoke of humanity’s urgent need for a new universe story. As he wrote in Christianity and Ecology, This universe, which we must now understand as our sacred universe, is the same universe as that presented in the book of Genesis. It is a universe, however, that is experienced through immediate empirical observation rather than simply through the inspired words of a narrator writing in a distant region and an ancient time in a strange language. For Berry, the future survival of both humanity and nature depends on their journey forward together. The moment calls for a new narrative, one that merges scientific understanding with religious meaning to illuminate the sacred nature of planetary life. Beatrice Bruteau captured this urgency brilliantly. She said, Something will explode if we persist in trying to squeeze into our tumbledown huts the material and spiritual forces that are henceforward on the scale of the world. Like Chardin, she recognized that superficial changes will not suffice. Quoting her again, An entire attitude, mindset, way of identifying self and others and perceiving the world has to shift first before any talk of economic, political, and social arrangements can be made. Anything else is premature, useless, and possibly dangerous. So I found in this statement a challenge to me, just to figure out, well, okay, so, about the time of Galileo and Newton and so forth, and then Darwin and so forth, science and religion took opposite perspectives. So science told us how things work, and religion told us why things work, theoretically. And so what I see these people trying to say is, you know, there’s something that they call kind of like the Christ spirit, which is extant throughout creation. So yes, it was extant in Jesus, the Christ, but it’s also extant in every other person to some measure, and extant in the cosmos itself, that this Christ spirit, this is from a Christian perspective, obviously, that Christogenesis is something that’s all-pervasive throughout the created order. And if we see, then, that everything is created with this, from this Big Bang onward, you know, like 14 billion years blessings, if you will, that that changes our attitude towards each other and towards the universe, and particularly the world, the natural world in which we find ourselves. So there’s a way in which somehow, instead of these things being dualistic or competitive understandings, if you could bring a synthesis of those two, that that would really be helpful to everything. So in that contrast between the term religion and science, the difference is meaning. Religion carries value, carries meaning, that science doesn’t carry. Is that right? I think so, and I’d say probably meaning and purpose, or intent, or… I hate to use the word design, because many people confuse that with, you know, fundamentalist understandings of creator and creation and all that. And the problem with that thinking, in my head, is that that’s still dualistic. You sort of have the creator over here, and you have the creature over here. And what Christogenesis is trying to say is that those really are one and the same. There’s no such thing as that separate entity. It’s all one allness, you know, in the sense that when Moses asked God, well, who do you say that I am, and go back and tell the people, God said, well, I am that I am, which to me infers that the totality of everything is what God is, but something that’s even beyond our vastest, wildest imaginations. So it’s not like just saying, well, he has all the elements here on Earth, and that’s all there is to it, or even in the cosmos, and that’s all there is to it. No, I don’t think so. I think there’s something more expansive than that. You know, kind of like when people talk about the creation in Genesis, that’s kind of a perspective, well, God the creator, in seven days, however you interpret that, did this thing called creation, and here it is. And then sort of God disappeared from the scene, you know. We’re kind of on our own. I’m not being connected with prayer or something like that, or influence it even, but by and large, there’s a duality. There’s the creature, and there’s the creator, and those are two separate things. And I really think there’s real possibility in trying to merge those concepts, just like trying to merge science and religion, which I think are trying to find meaning. What is the meaning of things? What’s the meaning of life, both human life and, you know, life on Earth, or life on the planet or in the cosmos, that sort of thing. Yeah, or maybe unity, or maybe something called love, which of course is problematic because we use love in so many ways that it doesn’t really convey much anymore. But if you think whatever this creative energy is that is ongoing and is still creating, it’s not like the creation happened once, you know, like you get the idea in Genesis, well, God created and then God went somewhere, you know, or whatever, or God’s above and we’re down here, or all those ideas. I don’t, for my way of thinking, that’s not it. There’s something, there’s some energetic life force that’s way somewhere, maybe eternally, infinitely, and we’re manifestations of that. You and I in this conversation are all manifestations of that spirit and all this furniture around us and the ocean out there and the mountains and all that, that’s all a oneness or an I am that I am, an allness. And to me, if more people would grasp that sense of connectivity and say, oh, yeah, I’m created in the image of God, or I am the image of God, then so much of the competition, so much of the suspicion, all the hatred, all the violence that we do one to another, wars and so forth, those would be reduced. And I think if enough people got that spirit, they would just end wars because you wouldn’t harm someone else because you realize, oh, my gosh, I’m harming myself. And myself has worth just like that other person has worth. We have infinite worth, so to speak, because we’re all part of the same energetic life force or love or whatever it is that’s going somewhere and evolving. I love the idea that even God and God’s self is evolving. It’s not like so much of Christendom seems to have the idea that, well, God is all-powerful, omnipotent, omniscient, all that sort of thing. But still, it’s like God, usually referred to as He, is somewhere out there, the God in the sky thing, and we’re down here, which in medieval ages, that’s how they viewed the world. There was like Earth and there was the heavens above and the waters below, and that’s the way they saw things. Well, fine, but I think that that’s just not it. So I had a thought today while scuba diving about wholeness. So I was down there and looking at fish, and I took my little flashlight, and I was looking through the cracks of the rocks and stuff, and there’s fish that are hiding from me, of course, because I’m big and predatory, and they’re not wanting to get eaten by something weird that they haven’t seen before. And I’m like, oh, yeah, look at all these cool fish just hanging out and being fish. And here I am, and I’m just swimming along with them and whatever. And the thought that occurred to me was, oh, last night I ate a whole red snapper. It’s just like one of these things. It wasn’t a red snapper I was staring at, but I’m like, oh, yeah, well, I ate one of you last night, and half of it’s in the fridge now. And I’m like, well, so how does that jive with wholeness? Like I’m out in the ocean, right, burning a bunch of fossil fuels to get out there in the first place, polluting everything. We took flights here, massively polluting. This building is not eco-friendly, et cetera. And I ate the things that I was communing with, right? And I’m not a vegetarian, not a vegan, so I eat animals every day, animal products every day, cheese and dairy and whatever. Is wholeness that I’m eating them and that’s cool and that’s fine and that’s all part of wholeness and that’s the meaning of life? How do you wrap your head around? So for me, it feels fairly simple. The universe is out there. I feel good when I try to help other people. Obviously, people cooperating with other people makes everybody, all the people, better off, right? Helping others to strangers is a good thing because it could be me next time that needs help, et cetera. So even for selfish reasons, for my enlightened self-interest, I should help people because I’m one stroke away from being the guy who needs help. Like I’m three heartbeats away from throwing a clot. Now I’m, right? And how much money you have, you’re still a heartbeat away from throwing a clot and having brain damage and being totally helpless. That’s basically an understanding from the Old Testament. It says if you fall and there’s no one there to help you get up, then what? Yeah, you bonk your head and game over, man. How does that fit into wholeness? The meaning of life is wholeness, okay? So, you know, here I am and there’s the fishes and I eat some of them. Is that wholeness? To me, the first layer of that is recognition. So the very fact that we who supposedly have, as far as we know, the highest level of consciousness, that we are recognizing the interconnectedness of all things. We’re recognizing, to claim that specific, you recognize today that that which called you to remember beauty and amazement and all of that is of the same ilk, the same species, a fish, that you consumed last night when you were satisfying your own hunger. So the recognition of the way things are all woven together and interconnected is the beginning of wholeness. So in that connection, I think that’s why some people become vegetarian, because they have this sense, well, all these beings, they’re not inferior to us, so we have the right to kill them and eat them. So they have a sense that, no, that’s just not, that’s right. I think the counterbalance to that is the fact that it seems like that creation and destruction, life and death, go hand in hand. So, for instance, we are stardust. We are comprised of things which had their genesis from the Great Bang, which was huge, hugely, I don’t know, destructive? But I don’t know. Anyway, later on, all the supernovas that explode and so there’s all this dust going around and then the dust in our arena becomes the beginning of microbial life and then plant life and then animal life and so forth. So we are like stardust. So that happened from a very violent beginning. And I think that’s what you have to contend with as you think about, well, is the universe beneficent? Is the will of God, so to speak, for us to know joy and peace and tranquility and all that? So it seems like in our time-space continuum that there’s always this paradoxical yin-yang thing where you have the forces of good and the forces of evil and the challenge, I think, is to figure out, well, how does that describe the nature of, quote, God, end quote. Well, let me give you a version of it that makes sense to me. There’s a sun out there that’s pumping 87 billion gigawatts an hour or whatever of solar energy at this planet. So on this planet there’s millions of different life forms of evolution, whatever. So the sun hits it all and it keeps on churning. And so the fox catches the bunny rabbit and the rabbit’s eating the grass and the grass is growing but the bunny rabbit’s not eating it and whatever. And then the hawk swoops down and eats the bunny’s baby and whatever. And the whole thing just keeps freaking out. When I was out there scuba diving, there was a million fish eating another million fish. So they were all eating each other. Humans farther off the coast were scooping up millions of them in fisheries. And for me, it makes sense to go, oh, OK, well, yeah, we’re this tiny pale blue dot in the middle of an infinite ocean of almost nothingness. And the sun’s hitting us and adding all this energy and we’re reacting to all that energy that the sun’s hitting us with in all kinds of millions and millions and billions of different ways. And that’s just a big engine of biological diversity. And that’s great. And then I happen to be one of the monkeys that are on the planet doing what I do, and what I do is just part of nature and that’s all part of whatever. So none of that is ethical. It’s just the way it is. It’s just the sun is hitting the planet, the planet’s doing stuff, and empires come and empires go and people are cruel and people are kind and all these things happen for millennia and then the sun envelops the entire earth and it’s gone. So I think part of what you eventually come to is like trying to explore the nature of consciousness, to say, well, we are the apes, if you will, that have become self-aware. We’re aware that we’re aware. We know that we know. And if that’s what it means to be in the image of God.

That would suggest that we are evolving and as we evolve we become self-aware and have the ability and capacity to make choices beyond just instinctual choices like all other animals and plants and everything else on the planet apparently does. So that’s part of the equation to say, well, yeah, part of this creative process was to try to create a circumstance in which the beings become self-aware. But there’s probably a super intelligent life out there in the universe somewhere, right? Probably. That’s probably smarter than us. Yeah. So they look at us like we look at ants, like we don’t care. Could be. Yeah. I think that’s a pretty good possibility. We just bulldoze the place because we don’t care because they’re ants. So I don’t know. Was that part of wholeness? When the aliens decide that they’re going to go vacuum up all the water because it’s a useful resource for their planetary system? Yeah. That’s all wholeness? Yeah. We get our planet destroyed by some ultra alien whatever? I think it is. If that were to occur, Jay, for me, that’s a different expression, a different intensity, a different dimension, a different impact on me as when I suck up the ants that are running across my kitchen floor because I don’t want them running across my kitchen floor. Yeah. Those sticky traps you put up for the spiders? Yeah. Exactly. You’re being wholenessed with those spiders? You and those spiders are part of the same wholeness? Yeah. And that’s the meaning of life? Well, for me, the meaning of life is, like I said, foundationally the recognition that that’s all part of life. Another layer is the recognition that when I recognize that, I have power to choose one action over another action. And that then takes me back to your point about most humans lean toward, it’s in my enlightened self-interest to be decent because tomorrow I may need somebody to be decent to me. So bottom line recognition, next story up, recognition that we have choice and that the result of our choices, different choices bring different results. So if we’re created in the image of God, I don’t know just what that means, but it could be one of the characteristics is just the creative urge itself. And so in the Genesis account, God looked out upon the chaos and decided to create something, structure it in a certain way. And so maybe that’s our role as we become self-aware and conscious that we are co-creators with that force. We’re aligning ourselves with this creative force, which I think, again, you have to say is sometimes destructive. Everything dies and then it comes back in a different form. So apparently atoms, molecules are not ever destroyed, but they’re being continually transformed. And that’s part of the process that we’re engaged in. And so it’s very painful to recognize that at times, you’re thinking, wow, I just lost a person that had tremendous meaning to me and just happened to us just a couple of weeks ago when they were at a memorial service. Here’s someone who died, what we would say, before his time. And so I think always at the back of my mind anyway, I’m always thinking, well, how does that work in a beneficent world? And so I can only come to grips with a lot of that by taking sort of what I’m coming to call like the 35,000 foot view of things, you know? Okay, so I don’t understand on a day-to-day basis why this, that and the other thing happens. But do I still think that overall in ways that are kind of beyond my comprehension or beyond my apprehension or whatever, that there’s something kind of good going on here. And I’m called to be a part of that, called to lend my small weight towards the tipping point of a more peaceful, just world. That’s, that’s, that’s important to me. It gives a meaning to my life that’s beyond just kind of getting through the day. And a significant intersection is how do each of us then respond when the present circumstances appear to us to be not supportive of the move toward wholeness? Sure. Sure. Yeah. When do you appropriately resist? And when do you try to change things in the direction that you think is better than the current conditions? And in what manner do you take that action? Right. So that kind of gets you to the point of violent or non-violent resistance, you know, in the long run, which of those is more efficacious? But all that is human-human conflict, right? None of that has to do with cosmic wholeness or oneness or God or any of that, right? Or does it all? Is interpersonal conflict a big chunk of the scope of religious wholeness? When you use the term religious, what can you make an equivalent of that for me? What does the term religious mean for you? So religious is any assertion or—it’s invoking some super, what I would call supernatural power, some thing that’s more than what science could ever understand, of which I’m a skeptic. What did you think of that reading that we just did at the opening there? Are you talking about this? Yeah. No, not that one. Oh. That’s the Humanist Manifesto. I’m interested in what you think about that, too, but— The thing you— I was thinking about this, too. So the thing you read a half an hour ago, I struggled— Right, which basically says that a scientific point of view is actually based on a faith assumption that that’s the way to view reality, is through the scientific process and method of repeatable experiments, gets the same result over and over and over again, and that increases the reliability of it. So that’s a way of—these folks are saying that that’s kind of a faith thing. It’s kind of a way of—same thing religious folk are trying to do, which is to come to some sort of an ultimate truth, or at least move towards an ultimate truth. I think both scientists and theologians, who, in my view anyway, are more honest, are actually saying this is always an open-ended process. The scientists would like to be proven wrong, because that means there’s something moving forward beyond our current understanding, like Newton and Galileo and so forth. Of course, religion condemned those folks, but I would like to see religion being more open to it, and I think wouldn’t it be great if religious people were willing to equally say alongside scientists, hey, this is the best understanding we have right now, but if you could prove me wrong, wow, do so, please do so. I think that’s where true scientists and true theologians could actually have something in common, and I’m really intrigued by the way that language of scientists has taken on what I would call mystical dimensions. So when you talk about dark energy or dark matter, that’s a scientific explanation, supposedly, of something we can’t prove, except in the absence of it. We think it’s there because it affects something else, but we can’t really see it, we can’t really measure it, but it’s 95% of everything it is. So to me, that’s kind of a faith statement. We can’t prove that or disprove that. We have indicators that suggest the truth of it, but guess what? In my opinion anyway, we don’t know that. We have a name for it. So that’s the scientific side, and on the mystic side, you have people talking about dark light. You know, what the heck is dark light, you know, come on, other than dark matter, dark energy. I mean, it looks to me like there’s getting to be a crossover of science and religion because we’re all baffled and mystified and I would think in a state of wonder, wonderment, trying to say, wow, there’s some really heavy-duty thing going on here that we don’t even hardly begin to know what questions to ask, let alone find answers to. So I think— Well, yeah, my understanding of dark matter and dark energy are that when you look at the math of the universe as we understand it, our best models are that, oh, okay, based on this universe expansion rate, et cetera, these things look like the best hypothesis we have, and they’re called dark because we have no idea what they are. If you think of religion as that upon which you base your life stance— But they’re not basing life stances. Scientists aren’t basing life stances. They’re trying to come up with the best hypothesis that they can to fit the data that they have. Yeah, but the stance is that we’re going to experiment repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly and try new experiments on new phenomena, and we’re going to come to some sort of a better thing. To me, that’s kind of the idea, the question itself is a religious stance. It’s like what you bet your life on. It’s what you say, this is the reality of life, and science is the way that I’m going to measure by my own personal experience and by knowledge of other scientists and so forth. That seems to me rather equivalent to people of religious faith. Yeah, so in that path of thinking, religion has more to do with purposefulness, and you’re saying, I think, that science is purposeful in that it seeks ultimate reality. It seeks to discover what is the nature of reality, and it seeks that with a spirit that says, hey, prove me wrong. If there’s some better understanding than this, I want it. Prove to me what the better understanding is. But it’s in the interest of comprehending, apprehending, being apprehended by the truth of ultimate reality with recognition that that keeps expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding. What we understood to be truth in the 1700s is not necessarily the same as what we understand to be truth now. It seems to me that science and religion are both seeking a singularity. They’re trying to figure out how things really work and why these things work that way. So I don’t know, it just seems to me like it’s the same quest with a different name and different techniques. So if a religious person or a spiritual person does it through meditative techniques and prayer and fasting and all the spiritual disciplines, and the scientist uses mechanical disciplines and measurements and weights and things like that, how is that different, really? The awareness that I’ve had within the last couple of years is that many people who would say, if asked, are you religious? Many people who would say, yes, I’m religious, think of religion as a certain set of sacraments and ordinances, a certain behavioral stance in terms of you go to church on Sunday morning or you pray five times a day or whatever the particular happens to be. And a whole bunch of doctrinal beliefs, faith for most people is kind of defined as belief. Would you believe in Jesus? Do you believe in God? Like an intellectual thing, so many times we’ve talked about the difference between an intellectual understanding and a heart being apprehended by the heart and what a distinction that is. So life isn’t just about what you can figure out in your head, it has all sorts of things to do with your emotions and your intuition and your heart, all these heart energies and so forth. So that’s another dimension to this whole discussion, I think. And scientists, interestingly, are the ones who are measuring the heart energy and realizing, guess what? There’s about four or five times as much energy produced from your heart as there is from your brain. So you’ve got to wonder, so who’s in charge here? Like is it your heart or your brain? And then other scientists are saying, well, no, wait just a minute, it’s your gut. Your gut really is where all this stuff comes from, like your bio, what do they call it? Bio… Biorhythms? No, not your biorhythms, your gut stuff, like the bacteria in your gut. Biomass? No, there’s another name for it, anyway. So who knows? And again, I find the interlap between science and, quote, religion, or I’d rather say spirituality because religion has so many overtones with the things you were just talking about, Sharon, the idea of intellectual scent and rituals and institutions and right, traditions, all that stuff. Hierarchies of leadership. There you go. And tradition. Tradition. Hey, is this a good place to close this session? Sure. Of podcast? Did we figure something out? Have we globiated enough? Did we arrive anywhere? Are you guys wanting to be on the beach at sunset? What’s your timing on that? Yeah, that’s the plan, on the beach, on sunset. So we need to leave about, probably right about now, 4.30. All right, thanks for podcasting. 5.15. Where are we, mom? Where are we? Where are we? Yeah. Costa Rica. Oh. Yeah, describe our setting here. We are in the Hotel Flamingo, which actually is not a hotel at all, but is in fact, our particular unit is a vacation rental by owner, which we have rented for vacation from the owner. And we are overlooking the bay, which is, part of it is called Maya Flamingo. Playa. Playa. Playa. Playa Flamingo. P-L-A-Y-A, which I understand means Flamingo Beach. And this is, by far, the finest accommodation that I’ve ever been privileged to dwell in for a few days, thanks to our good research from Jay Hanna. Ever? Really? Is this the fanciest place? It’s not necessarily the fanciest, it’s just the most appealing. Really? Yes. Of your entire life? Yep. Wow. This is top of the line, as far as I’m concerned. Look at me and my internet search. Absolutely. Paradise. You done good. And so, we would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas 2024, or Happy Holidays for those who are more inclined in that direction. What’s, yeah, it’s Christmas in what, three days? Two days? What’s this, the 23rd? Today’s the 22nd. 22nd? It’s Wednesday, this is Sunday, so yeah, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three days. I don’t think we’re going to have a white Christmas in Costa Rica. Unless it’s volcanic ice or something like that, I don’t think so. Oh boy, yeah, that would be bad. And the day that we arrived, the night before last, well, morning before, very late the night before last, we saw this absolutely gorgeous sunset out over the bay.

from our balcony. It seemed very late. It was actually only 5.15. That’s when the sun sets. But we had put in an 18-hour day at that point. So yeah, it did seem very late. My body was saying it was very late. Very late. What time did we leave for the airport? At 4.30? 4 o’clock? Quarter to four. We actually were packing the cars. You transported us in our vehicle to the airport and took the vehicle home, appeared on our doorstep at quarter to four. Yeah, I think I set my alarm for 2 a.m. to get up to start that day. That was a long day of getting here. The day before that, as it happens, I had been up at 4 o’clock because I was taking a friend to the airport for an early flight. And this is the woman who functions best on nine to ten hours of sleep. And amazingly, I haven’t napped at all today. And I only slept until about 6.30, 6.15. Well, you wouldn’t want to miss any of this view of paradise. So I’m going to go wake up our younger son who is napping now so that we can go to the beach at sunset. Alrighty. Thanks, Internet. Bye. If you’d like to call into the show, you can leave us a voicemail at 1-402-577-0117.