[GJM] Is God Dead?

[mary rose]

The original article asking this question was published by 
TIME magazine in the April 8, 1966 issue, and has ever 
since been incorporated into an on-going international 
dialogue.  

This first link reveals the cover of TIME for this issue with
the question "IS GOD DEAD?" emblazoned on the front. 

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19660408,00.html

This next link takes one to the original article entitled: 
"Toward a Hidden God." http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835309,00.html

But far more interesting perhaps is a related article:  "God vs. Science"  which is a recent interview conducted by TIME   with Richard Dawkins and Geneticist Francis Collins, who mapped the human genome project. 

To even the laity itself, how God appears to them is defined by this article as: "Anonymous Christianity" as it goes on. to reveal how, "(I)n search of meaning, some believers have desperately turned to psychiatry, Zen or drugs. Thousands of others have quietly abandoned all but token allegiance to the churches, surrendering themselves to a life of "anonymous Christianity" dedicated to civil rights or the Peace Corps. Speaking for a generation of young Roman Catholics for whom the dogmas of the church have lost much of their power, Philosopher Michael Novak of Stanford writes: "I do not understand God, nor the way in which he works. If, occasionally, I raise my heart in prayer, it is to no God I can see, or hear, or feel. It is to a God in as cold and obscure a polar night as any non-believer has known." 

The article continues: "Even clergymen seem to be uncertain. "I'm confused as to what God is," says no less a person than Francis B. Sayre, the Episcopal dean of Washington's National Cathedral, "but so is the rest of America." Says Marty's colleague at the Chicago Divinity School, the Rev. Nathan Scott, who is also rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Hyde Park: "I look out at the faces of my people, and I'm not sure what meaning these words, gestures and rituals have for them." 

But some do find God, shall we say: "elemental."  ""Hydrogen & Carbon. To those who do formulate a God, he seems to be everything from a celestial gas to a kind of invisible honorary president "out there" in space, well beyond range of the astronauts. A young Washington scientist suggests that "God, if anything, is hydrogen and carbon. Then again, he might be thermonuclear fission, since that's what makes life on this planet possible." 

"To a streetwalker in Tel Aviv, "God will get me out of this filth one day. He is a God of mercy, dressed all in white and sitting on a golden throne." A Dutch charwoman says: "God is a ghost floating in space." Screenwriter Edward Anhalt (Becket) says that "God is an infantile fantasy, which was necessary when men did not understand what lightning was. God is a cop-out." A Greek janitor thinks that God is "like a fiery flame, so white that it can blind you." "God is all that I cannot understand," says a Roman seminarian. A Boston scientist describes God as "the totality of harmony in the universe." Playwright Alfred muses: "It is the voice which says, 'It's not good enough' -that's what God is". . . .Even though they know better, plenty of Christians find it hard to do away with ideas of God as a white-bearded father figure. William McCleary of Philadelphia, a Roman Catholic civil servant, sees God "a lot like he was explained to us as children. As an older man, who is just and who can get angry at us. I know this isn't the true picture, but it's the only one I've got."  

>From an interview between Richard Dawkins and Genome Project Manager, Genetist, Francis Collins I've taken the following:   

DAWKINS: If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle. All kinds of things may happen which we by the lights of today's science would classify as a miracle just as medieval science might a Boeing 747. Francis keeps saying things like "From the perspective of a believer." Once you buy into the position of faith, then suddenly you find yourself losing all of your natural skepticism and your scientific--really scientific--credibility. I'm sorry to be so blunt.

DAWKINS: My mind is not closed, as you have occasionally suggested, Francis. My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities, which I cannot even dream about, nor can you, nor can anybody else. What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up. When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable--but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

mary rose:  In view of what the "new biology" of science is revealing today, since we now have instrumentation that can look far deeper into the human mind and the biology of the body than ever before, I have to agree with Dawkins in the above statement about God..  As we've moved out of the flatland of faith-based religious beliefs, which emanated from the intuitions of people without a way of accurate measurement, and have learned more about both the cosmos and human biology, a new picture is emerging that is far grander and more magnificent than could heretofore possibly be imagined.  And, science is now able, in fact, to lay solid ground under so-called "miracles," allowing us to firmly separate myth from reality and give us a better look at how, both we humans and the Earth, work together to produce consciousness through a feedback loop from one living organism to another.  Indeed, the Universe itself is filled with in-formation which we are just now learning how to access and translate into meaningful signals.  

Since what we have conceived of as God in our prior state of awareness, (stage of development as a collective consciousness) can now only be defined as "an energy field" in view of the new science, and knowing that energy never dies but only changes form, we know that God is not dead, but, in view of the new biology, looks more like a mainframe computer that gathers and stores all of the in-formation of the Universe, including your thoughts and mine, in a field. That field is known as the "Akashic Field." And while this field was known intuitively to the Ancient Ones, it was not scientifically defined.  This has now been accomplished by world renowned scientist: Dr. Ervin Laszlo, author of 75 books related to this subject. He has recorded his recent findings related to this subject in two books:  1) Science and the Akashic Field, and 2) Science and the Reenchantment of the Cosmos - The Rise of the Integral Vision of Reality.  

Now, if you care about your children, grand-children and great-grandchildren, then get up off of your ass, and go to the library, or order these books via the Internet, and READ THEM. I have four children, six grandchildren and three great-grandchilden that I care about and want to have a future.  But, if we keep going around and around in the same old circles this is not going to happen.  SO MOVE IT. NOW.  I am simply tired of the same old thinking that has literally destroyed this planet in the past 60 - 70 years!

By the way, I turned 76 yesterday, so if I can learn all this new stuff and be able to write about it comprehensively so can you. 

with love and in gratitude for all that we do together. 

mary rose 

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