SCHOLARS
Dear Scholars of God,
Peace to the World : An Invitation
What more joyful gift of peace could be offered to
the world than to show that all the major religions, and democracy and
science, may have their origin in one singular, exceptionally intense
and powerful human inspiration, and its various interpretations: that
is of the evolution of a kind of spiritual DNA?
In 1858 Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace first explained
that the evolution and diversity of species can be understood to occur
through the selection by their environment of preferred natural variations.
This has proven to be one of the most powerful of all scientific explanations.
In my short book, '473959', I have sketched the application
of very much the same form of argument to explain the evolution of religions,
democracy and science.
In order to be known historically, such a powerful
inspiration must certainly occur to determined and courageous individuals,
but their cultural environment must also be ready to accept a spiritual
mutation from their experience.
The typical form of inspiration is that of a supremely
powerful personality communicating a tremendous influx of raw information,
an influx so great that reason and emotions must struggle to interpret
it. It may comprise: a sense of strongly aggressive possession; the
assurance of kinship and love; security and comradeship; delighted recognition;
rational encouragement and emotional nurture; intimacy and tenderness;
forgiveness; generosity; sincerity - all of this, together with the
sense of timeless and fathomless existence. Sometimes there is a physical
apprehension; sometimes it is aural; sometimes it is visual; sometimes
there are all three.
These spiritual mutations may occur repeatedly throughout
history. What Darwin and Wallace noted, however, is that it is not the
organism that chooses to survive. It is rather the environment that
selects those variations that will allow the new generation to survive,
dominate, and increase.
The cultural group in which the spiritual mutation
is reported may choose to allow many aspects of it to be celebrated,
in many different forms. Hinduism, for example, has done precisely this:
producing such extreme variations as Siva, Kali, and Parvati, and hundreds
of others gods and goddesses in between. In contrast to this the severe
rational and emotional austerity of Buddhism and Jainism allows no form
of any absolute to be worshipped at all.
In other cases, the emphasis will be decided differently.
The nearly universal enmity faced by the early Jews, required that they
emphasize an inspiration of a strongly aggressive and possessive divinity
special to themselves. For the followers of Jesus, much later, it was
the personal love and security offered by that same divinity in private.
Later this was extended to Gentiles by St Paul. Later still, especially
for Marian Catholics, there is an even greater emphasis on tenderness
and nurture. For the early Protestants, later again, reason, natural
inquiry, and freedom of conscience became important. For Muslims, the
primary virtues required were sincerity, comradeship, and generosity.
In the intervals between these religious flowerings,
the remarkable developments of democracy and science have also appeared.
Both are clearly dependent on the same implicit and explicit confidence
in civil courtesy, shared intelligent and disciplined inquiry. (In passing,
it may be noted that the mission of Saint Paul to the Athenian Greeks
was met by their amused response: that he had really nothing new to
tell them!)
With the support of the United States' largest on-line
education journal www.EdNews.org
which will publish the on-going proceedings, I invite you to join us
in an international electronic colloquium to explore this explanation
of the common origin of religions, science, and democracy. We will naturally
accept any representative or representatives whom you may wish to nominate
to take part.
If this colloquium is as successful, as we hope, this
will followed by a symposium of distinguished scholars and guests, also
sponsored by EdNews, at an appropriate university in the United States,
Britain, or elsewhere, in early 2008. The book '473959' will be exhibited
by Trafford Publishing on April 16th-18th at the London Book Fair and
may be ordered directly from
www.Trafford.com or from www.Amazon.com
I
remain, Sirs, yours sincerely,
Colin Hannaford,
Director IDM.
