How the Reunion of Science and Spirituality Can Enrich Your Life and Sustain Our World

The adult study group for members of Community UCC met for five Mondays beginning October 6th, 2008.

The year 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. In honor of and preparation for this important anniversary, we are going to be looking at the influence of evolution on our spiritual lives. The purpose of this class is to help people experience grace, the divine love of God (the Creator of the Universe), through an understanding of the science of evolution.

The class will introduce people to the ideas of Spiritual Evolution, an idea also known as Process Theology in the Christian tradition.  A central idea of Spiritual Evolution is that unless a critical number of people realize that WE ARE ALL ONE, humanity will go the way of the dinosaurs.  As Eckardt Tolle puts it: “Humanity is faced with a stark choice: evolve or die.”

This class is being guided by Paster Pete Terpenning and Cathy Russell, who earned a Ph.D. in evolutionary microbiology and hosts the web sites www.EpicOfEvolution.com and www.ArtOfGrace.org.

Many of the ideas presented in this class can be seen at www.ThankGodForEvolution.com or read about in the book of the same name by Michael Dowd.

Following is an outline of the class, based on the acronym GRACE, with links to some videos that we will be viewing and discussing in class.

G is for Good Orderly Direction

“The arc of the Universe bends toward justice.” ~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

In this class, we explore the idea that the universe has a divine trajectory, that it is moving toward greater complexity, consciousness, cooperation and even love.

Discussion Questions

  • What are you hoping to gain from this class?
  • Is the universe friendly?
  • What is your concept of God?
  • Are God and the science of evolution incompatible?

Video on the Web

Activity

Walk Through Deep Time.

R is for Reconciliation

Some of the greatest gifts of an evolutionary worldview are reconciliation and forgiveness.

This class looks at the reconciliation of science with religion. We will look at scientific evidence in the form of The Tree of Life that confirms the ancient mystical idea that We Are All One.

We will also discuss how understanding language can help us reconcile science and religion.

Finally, and most applicably, we we discuss how understanding evolution can make us more forgiving. With a deep time perspective, we can more easily reconcile differences between ourselves and others.

Video on the Web

Activity

Pin the Creature on the Tree of Life. In this activity, we learn about the vast diversity of life on Earth and discover that we are all related through our DNA.

A is for Awareness

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” ~ William Shakespeare

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.” ~ William James

In this class, we focus on Evolutionary Psychology and how knowing about our minds can give us awareness of and power over our automatic thoughts and impulses. Our brain has a mind (actually several) of its own. Learning about how these minds evolved can help give us power over them. The Quadrune Brain.

  • Happiness/Anxiety – We are hardwired to seek happiness, not to achieve it.
  • Food – We are descendants of those with the best appetites
  • Love -

Video on the Web

Activities

Seeing the Rainbow – Limits to our Perception

Guided Meditation – How thoughts change reality

For More Reading

  • The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
  • The Moral Animal by Robert Wright
  • Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food taming our Primal Instincts by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan
  • A General Theory of Love

C is for Compassion and Cooperation

Evolution is about survival of the fittest. In the past, fitness was seen exclusively as most cutthroat. But fitness is also enhanced by cooperation and love. Cultural evolution is about survival of the fittest memes. Enlightened Self Interest = Cooperation. Cooperation is found in DNA, the heart of biological evolution.

Video On the Web

Activity – Making DNA: The Heart of Biological Evolution.

For More Reading

  • Non Zero by Robert Wright – Advances in game theory show how cooperation advances evolution.

E is for EcoJustice Ethic

The Epic of Evolution shows that the environment changes over time, and that certain environments are more or less friendly to life. We know that our survival depends on the survival of the Earth.

A spiritual practice shows that each of us is part of the larger whole. In the light of evolution, how might we be better Earth Stewards?

Video On the Web

  • Awakening The Dreamer – “Our mission is bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Planet Earth.” “We have to become aware of unexamined assumptions.  A new cultural story is emerging.  We are not separate, but rather profoundly connected at the macro and micro level.”

  • Thomas Berry – According to this Christian leader of Evolutionary Spirituality, “Humans are the way the universe creates itself” and “Humans must become integral to the Earth.”

  • The Story of Stuff 2:37 – This video gives a great introduction to the lifecycle of how things are made and disposed of and their impact of people and the planet. Here’s the full version: 21 minute full version

Activity

Oneness Blessing – To help us experience our next step in spiritual evolution, Dan Leftwich, who was trained at the Oneness University in Fiji, will introduce us to “The Oneness Blessing.”

Envisioning a Just and Sustainable Future. On a peice of paper, each person writes down her or his vision for a hopeful future event and the date in which it will come to pass. We will then set these on floor timeline and walk into our future.  Examples include: the end of malaria, the end of poverty, first walk on Mars, the tipping point for Oneness, mass transit for Colorado, first deflection of meteor, date for last war. We will then use these markers to create a timeline on the floor and walk into our future.

For More Info

  • Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawkins
  • Pachamama Alliance
  • Awakening the Dreamer Initiative – “Our mission is bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Planet Earth.”
  • Story of Stuff

Video testimonials about Thank God For Evolution can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5fjjS6PnSQ

For Fun

Evolution of Homer Simpson