The third aspect of the New ScienceSocial Paradigm I'd like to consider today is more amorphous and far more sensitive than the two I've suggested so far. It is the melding of science and religion.
Perhaps in no time since Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of thdoor of the Castle church at Wittenburg (1517) Cheap Quincy Wilson Jersey , or Calvin published his Institutes (1534) has religion been in such spiritual chaos. No one set out the serious concern of this age of religious chaos better than did Fritz Shumacher in ?Guide to the Perplexed.? Other scholars of the times like Gregory Bateson, Buckminster Fuller, Margaret Mead and others had a clear but unproclaimed religious character to their works. Schumacher's was the first, most profound, and most open declaration of the age of spiritual turmoil.
The religious chaos of the 1960s and ?70s was most clearly and dramatically proclaimed by the beads, incense Cheap Malik Hooker Jersey , granny dresses, long hair and horned rimmed glasses of the hippies. It was also declared by movements such as T.M., est, Hari Krishna, the search for Eastern religions, the return of paganism Cheap T.Y. Hilton Jersey , shamanism and Wiccan. It was expressed in the Broadway musicals Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar, and in the attempt to escape from social hills with psychedelic drugs. The concept of ?New Age? started out to be, more like Shumaker's ?Small is Beautiful,? a critique and correction of the excesses of the Industrial Age. It ended up being identified, particularly by its critics Cheap Andrew Luck Jersey , and the press, as being an off beat and occult religious movement, more likely to end up with the Jonestown and the more recent UFO induced suicides or other strange behaviors than in any serious revival of a deeper sense of spirituality.
Schumacher in ?Guide to the Perplexed? took the high road and recognized that the meandering search for meaning of the hippie generation was a deeper and more profound expression of the age than was being recognized by mainstream society. In ?Small is Beautiful? Schumacher had been concerned with what we do. In ?Guide to the Perplexed? he was concerned with why we do it. He recognized two kinds of science. One was ?knowledge for manipulation,? the other ?knowledge for understanding.? The former led to techniques and technologies for the satisfaction of the lower visible level of human wants. The later led to the higher values, meaning and purpose for life. As he said: ?It may conceivably be possible to live without churches; but it is not possible to live without religion, that is Cheap Nyheim Hines Jersey , without systematic work to keep in contact with, and develop toward, Higher Levels than those of ordinary life. ... Everywhere in the modern world there are experiments in new it is sometimes tolerated even in polite society to mention God.?
The Evolution of God
Belief in powers beyond the human level have been with us since humans first became conscious of themselves and the world into which they were born. Stories of creation, and speculation on the higher power have filled the human mind, and were the rocks on which cultures were built in every part of the world.
Throughout history humanity's understanding of that great power that created and controls the universe has grown, like the understanding of the physical cosmos and of biological life Cheap Tyquan Lewis Jersey , through many transitions. The evolution of our understanding of the Christian God is the one most familiar to us.
The first God of the Bible was a fierce and vengeful god to be feared. He was one of many gods (or baals) each of whom ruled over a limited people in a limited territory. The God of Abraham could command human sacrifice. Jacob wrestled all night face to face with his God. By the time of Isaiah, God had grown to be the creator of the world, the greatest among all gods. Jeremiah taught, God was not in the Temple but in the heart of humans. He had created the world for human use. The god of Moses lived on a Mountain in the Sinai desert from which he handed down the ethical rules for his chosen people, the Jews. With the teachings of Jesus, god took off his demeanor of wrath and punishment to become an all loving god promising eternal life for his people who did not sin. 12 With Paul there was one all powerful Christian god for all people. To Augustine the universe was a Chain-of- Being with humans near the top Cheap Kemoko Turay Jersey , and a hierarchy down through women, children, and lesser animals. Vastly above man sat God, with the Chain-of-Being filed with angels and other demigods. For Saint Thomas Aquinas, God was a omnipresent spiritual form more than a human like being. His existence was as discernible through reason as through revelation.
The view of God as creator of the universe that was to be ruled by man, was amplified by the Greek philosophers who first conceived of the idea that the universe was an ordered unity Cheap Braden Smith Jersey , and that man had the capability to understand it. To Socrates, Plato and Aristotle the ordered and purposeful universe was obviously for human use. All plants and animals were in a natural hierarchy with man at the top. The Roman Empire, Mediaeval Church, and European Monarchs, continued and expanded the idea that humans (more correctly 'man?) was the caretaker for all creation.
The Dichotomy Between Science and Religions
This view of man's dominion over the Earth prevailed until the time of Bacon and Descartes who had little respect for the non-human world, but divided human life into two realms Cheap Darius Leonard Jersey , the physical and the spiritual. They did not challenge the concept that the purpose of the universe was the use of humans. But, did contend that humans were created with the power to understand and dominate that universe. With the founding of economic theory on the principles of self-interest and survival-of-the-fittest, the material side of life became dominant. In the past 200 ye
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