When Mind Is Reduced To Matter

Scientific materialism brings with it some rather troubling implications. For example, that our brains are really "simply meat computers that, like real computers, are programmed by our genes and experiences to convert an array of inputs into a predetermined output" (Jerry Coyne, professor of biology). Or that humans are "survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (Richard Dawkins, biologist).

I bring that up because last night I was reading an article by Aldous Huxley on A Case For ESP, PK and PSI, which appeared in the Jan. 11, 1954 issue of Life magazine. It was a rather lengthy piece that stated the positive case as it existed then (in the heyday of J.B Rhine). Much work has been done since then by researchers with respectable credentials, yet the case for PSI still remains outside the mainstream of scientific thought. (But not, I would add, to the average person who can point to their own experiences.)

Anyway, the following paragraph from the article literally leaped from the page at me and I knew I had the subject of my next blog post:

Our philosophy has no place for free will or for anything which might be described as the soul. And yet, with a blessed absence of logic, we go behaving as though we believe in the uniqueness, the paramount value of human personality. Habit and the fact that our fundamental institutions were framed by men who were firmly convinced of the existence of all things that "no behaviorist has ever observed" make it quite easy for us to think one way while acting another, incompatible way. How much longer can we continue to perform this curious feat? One fine day some dangerously logical demagogue may ask us why, if men and women are merely the byproducts of physical and social processes, they should not be treated as such. After which we may expect to see the fiction of George Orwell's 1984 turn into appalling fact.

Are we there? Have we reached the day when we are going to be treated merely as "byproducts of physical and social progress"? Perhaps not, but some of us fear we are inching steadily in that direction.

The reason I believe those forecasting the end of religion are mistaken is that humans as a whole will never be able to fully embrace the worldview that philosophers of scientific materialism (such as those cited above) so boldly proclaim. It is too deeply ingrained in the human psyche that we are free and aren't mere robots. The rank and file human will always sense their uniqueness and rebel against reductionism. At least that is my prediction.

As approaching an understanding of PSI phenomena, again the rank and file human has some sense of the transcendent. The sense that our minds are not a byproduct but rather a direct product of the Supreme Mind which ordered the Cosmos is basic. That would allow that there can be connections with each other, our environment, and the Supreme Mind.

For me the acceptance of psychic phenomena serves as a kind of argument for belief in the primacy of mind in the universe. The annals of human history are replete with examples of premonitions, predictive dreams, spontaneous intuitive insight, and other psychic experiences. The Universe is intelligible and our minds are intelligent. Either that is by design or is the result of the most astonishing coincidence (or series of coincidences) of all time.

That I am a meat computer functioning inside a larger meat machine is something I just can't wrap my mind around. I'm sure that is true for the majority of us. And even those who do claim to believe it often act inconsistently. They are too uniquely human not to.

Lucky Star?

Recently I posted about the theology book that stopped a bullet and likely saved a life. The news coverage I examined before writing that post sometimes made references to soldiers and others whose lives were saved by pocket Bibles with metal covers.

I enjoy hearing about these strange - and for many of us - inspiring occurrences. To the extent I consider myself religious, I also consider myself a pluralist. It is known fact that Christians haven't a corner on "miracle" stories. Spiritual sentiments have been a feature of humankind for at least as long as recorded history. The details about the understanding of those sentiments differ from people to people, but they all speak to a shared belief in a vaster reality.

For example, while researching stories of bullets being stopped by Bibles, I happened upon one where a soldier was saved by another religious symbol, a Star of David medal. The full account can be read online here. Or, for those who don't care for link-clicking, I'll offer the following summary.

Los Angeles Times writer Jack Foisie characterized the occurrence as "a close brush with death, a chance intervention of 'the almighty,' if the man is religious, of 'fate' if he is not."

The soldier involved, Lt. Mark J. Meirowitz, was a religious man who wore a Star of David medal around his neck. It was that medal which deflected a bullet, preventing it from decimating his lung and arteries.

In Meirowitz's own words:

I had no idea what hit me. I noticed my left arm was in an awkward position, so I reached over and grabbed it with my other hand. It was like grabbing a block of wood. I felt nothing, I remember saying, oh, my God, I've lost my arm.

But he had not lost his arm. The nickel-sized medal deflected the bullet. It was found later in the armored car he was riding in when shot, the upper part of the medal missing.

Coincidence? Surely. Something more? Ah, that's the rub. Stories like these are perfectly explainable by natural means. However, religious folks tend to see patterns in their lives, patterns in which individual events like this one would tend to stand out. For those who will allow nothing but the natural, patterns are often chalked up to luck - either good or bad. Religious folks tend to count good luck as blessings.

Maybe It Was Synchronicity?

Ouch! Three visits to my last post. What's up with that? Coincidence maybe? I haven't had numbers that low since the other day when I posted about fleeces.

I pretty much just posted Downey's picture because I thought it was pretty. I love symbolism of all kinds and the fact that we humans can look at the same thing and interpret that thing in so many different ways.

Roma Downey is a Catholic Christian, so no wonder she posted on Facebook about her picture:

It certainly energized a tired, hardworking crew for the rest of the day and reminded everyone that we were being watched over as we are working hard to bring the Book of Acts to the screen.

I enjoy studying coincidences. Some of us see cosmic implications in them. As I suggested in that last post, some think of these things as Godwinks. I have seen the word Godincidences used. Also have seen Cosmic Winks employed. Then there is that old concept Carl Jung popularized, known as Synchronicity.

And I am very well aware that many of the hyper-rational folks think some of us are nutcases.

For my part, I can only write that I find life in the cosmos too extraordinary for me to think of it as ordinary. 

The Sign Of The Cross

Lovely Roma Downey and her husband Mark Burnett are producing for NBC a miniseries, A.D., which concerns the early Jesus movement after his death. Fittingly enough, it will begin to air on Easter Sunday, 2015.

She and Mark produced the recent Son of God movie. Downey is also well known for her role as an angel in the televisions series Touched By An Angel. Did you know she is also author of several children's books? Busy and gifted lady.

Anyway, while on location in Morocco, production ground to a halt when a cross appeared in the sky, formed by the clouds. The picture above is hers and is all over the internet. Later she showed her picture to a pastor friend who referred her to Acts 2:19 (the Bible book which forms the basis of the miniseries ): "And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the Earth below, blood and fire, and vapor of smoke."

Okay, I'm sure this isn't that, but it is still interesting. Of course it is being seen as a sign of blessing on the A.D. project.

Well, in life you tend to find what you're looking for. Believers clearly see a cross in the clouds; skeptics see just a coincidence. But what a coincidence! Here is a miniseries concerning the mission of the Jesus' disciples after his death, and during production the sky produces the shape of a cross - the method of Jesus' death. It's the kind of thing SQuire Rushnell calls a "Godwink."