< Back Quantum Consciousness David Cowles Oct 14, 2025 “It seems likely that all living organisms emit a bio-photonic aura…” Remember the ‘60s? Of course, you don’t. You weren’t born yet. Or if you were, you killed off those brain cells decades ago. But if you could remember the ‘60s, you’d remember that time (was it at Woodstock?) when a bead-bedraggled, tie dye wearing shaman, asked if she could ‘read your aura’. Of course, she could! It’s the ‘60s, man; everything goes! “Oh, you’re gorgeous. I see purple and a lovely shade of pink. It shows you’re a kind, generous, loving person. I do see a spot of green you might want to work on but overall, it’s magnificent. By the way, you wouldn’t be able to spare some change by any chance?” It was fun while it lasted…but you heard Wall St. calling. Now, more than half a century later, it turns out your shaman was right after all. A recent article by Darren Orf (published 5/13/2025 in Popular Mechanics ) confirms what hippies knew ages ago: “You’re glowing!” Recent studies confirm that living organisms emit ‘biophotons’…lots of them. A live mouse, for example, can emit up to 10⁵ photons per second. “You could even say it glows,” Rudolf, so why don’t we see it? (It would make life so much easier for my cat.) The trouble is, these biophotons are incredibly weak, well below the perceptual threshold of most humans. Just how weak are they? An advanced digital camera requires a full hour of exposure before it can record enough data to form a coherent pattern. It seems likely that all living organisms emit a bio-photonic aura, even prokaryotes (e.g. bacteria), single celled organisms without a nucleus. But, of course, we can’t know that for sure, at least not yet. What we do know is that plants do have auras. If a plant suffers some sort of injury, the aura at the site of the injury is especially intense. This suggests that organisms shift into overdrive to repair damage and that they emit more photons in the process. How is this related to consciousness? In the 1990s polymath Roger Penrose proposed that consciousness consists of quantum processes that take place in microtubules in the brain. The theory was and is controversial, for a number of reasons. But unexpectedly, experimental evidence is piling up in support of Penrose conjecture. We live in a World that spans c. 60 orders of magnitude…“from the Redwood Forest (the cosmic event horizon) to the gulf stream waters (the Planck measure).” (Woody Guthrie) Our lives are confined to just one such order. For example, our touted human awareness ( aka consciousness) is limited to events with durations between one-tenth of a second and one full second, one order of magnitude: “Our little life is rounded with a sleep.” ( The Tempest ) In recent experiments, scientists have shot photons into microtubules. Amazingly, the light was re-emitted after a period of time no shorter than one tenth of a second and no longer than one full second. Light travels through the microtubules roughly 10 orders of magnitude more slowly than in a vacuum. Whatever is happening in the ‘black box’ results in the phenomenon we call consciousness . Sidebar : I rank Roger Penrose as one of the three great intellects of the 20 th century, along with Einstein and Whitehead. Even so, I guffawed when I first heard his theory of consciousness: “Ridiculous!” But these days, more and more skeptics are coming around to his point of view… and now I am one of them. But this story is not all unicorns and rainbows! These findings have a potentially more disturbing aspect. To confirm their hypotheses, scientists need a control group. What better control group for a living organism than a deceased one? You might expect that the bioluminescence would switch off at the moment of death. If so, searching for an aura could be a useful way to determine whether a particular organism is alive. But nature may not be as neat as we’d like it to be. The evidence is equivocal but seems to suggest that life and death are more of a continuum than a dichotomy. In one study, 30 minutes after ‘death’, mouse bodies continued to radiate photons, albeit at an average rate approximately 40% lower than when they were fully alive. These findings suggest that biological activity continues long after ‘clinical death’. Intriguingly, this is one more bit of evidence to reinforce the emerging ‘ bio-continuum ’ consensus. Collectively, these discoveries constitute a double edged sword. On the one hand, they might increase the window available for resuscitation…or even resurrection. On the other hand, they could challenge the way we customarily handle organic remains. The assumption that clinical death is synonymous with a total loss of conscious sentience is eroding. What if the deceased organism retains some level of awareness? At the risk of sounding ‘gross’, these findings challenge the morality of treating a ‘dead body’ as ‘refuse’. Sticking a loved one in a body bag and then into a refrigerated cabinet to await cremation and/or burial doesn’t seem so attractive any more. Most pre-industrial societies follow a more prolonged and potentially less terrifying process when saying goodbye. We’re all familiar, of course, with the Tibetan and the Egyptian Books of the Dead . Two civilizations with little if any cross contact developed remarkably similar traditions. This suggests that these rites rose in response to something fundamentally cross-cultural, e.g. the intuition that life is a continuum. The traditional Irish wake and the Jewish practice of ‘sitting shiv’ are further manifestations of this tendency. The Nordic tradition of placing a corpse in a boat and sending it into the sea is another. Clearly, these are areas that require additional exploration. In the meantime, it seems that somewhat more humane funerary practices are ethically indicated, at least until we have more data. *** Hilma af Klint’s The Ten Largest, No. 10, Adulthood (1907) bursts with swirling pastel forms that suggest blossoming consciousness and the invisible forces animating life. Executed in egg tempera on paper mounted to canvas, it merges organic curves and floating symbols into an ethereal visualization of spiritual growth and human energy. Part of a series inspired by mystical revelation rather than formal aesthetics, the work channels the aura of adulthood as a transcendent state between earthly experience and higher planes of existence. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back What's It All About, Alfie? David Cowles Sep 12, 2023 “It’s simple: anything is nothing without something, but something is nothing without anything…or life is a ripe banana. Take your pick!” Certain themes permeate Intellectual History like swirls of chocolate in a pint of fudge ripple; they pop up in different guises in different eras in different Weltanschauungs; for example: Aletheia vs. Doxa – Parmenides Substance vs. Accident – Aquinas Noumena vs. Phenomena – Kant Existence vs. Essence – Sartre, et al. Être vs. Neant – Sartre Pour Soi vs. En Soi – Sartre One vs. Many – Whitehead Actual Entity vs. Eternal Object – Whitehead While each of these memes has its own special merit, one formulation sums them up best: Dasein (that it is) vs. Wassein (what it is) – Heidegger Wassein includes everything you’d ever want to know (or could ever know) about an entity: its size, shape, color, etc. It concerns what philosophers call ‘Qualia’ (aka ‘qualities’). Anything that defines, describes, or qualifies an entity or event is part of its Wassein . Rule of Thumb #1 : if it can be expressed as an adjective or an adverb, it’s Wassein . Dasein , on the other hand, has no qualities. Rule of Thumb #2 : If you can describe it at all, it’s not Dasein . In fact, Dasein tells you one and only one thing about an entity: that it is! Anything other than that belongs on the other side of the ledger. Some ledger! On one side, you have everything there is to know about Universe; on the other side, you have just one thing: that it is! And yet, the two sides balance. As the song says, “You can’t have one without the other.” It’s simple: anything is nothing without something, but something is nothing without anything…or life is a ripe banana. Take your pick! Every Wassein is unique. Two things can’t be identical; if they were, they’d be one thing. To be X is not-to-be ~X. Even God is three distinct persons. Duplication is strictly prohibited by the nature of Being itself, and it’s a good thing, too, because otherwise we’d drown in an infinity of identities . Unlike Wassein , Dasein never varies, never changes. It's a ‘Qualia-free Zone’. If you’ve ever said anything at all about Dasein , you’ve misspoken. It truly is ineffable . My ‘I am’ is your ‘I am’; they are one ‘I am’. They are not similar, or congruent, or even identical; they are one thing. My ‘I am’ is your ‘I am’, God’s ‘I am’ and the ‘I am’ of a bacterium soon to be discovered on Mars. Now, don’t get me wrong. We couldn’t be more different, and I’m certainly not a bacterium or, last I checked, God. You’re a Mensa member, a tenured Ivy League professor, and a celebrated cellist… I am not. But your ‘being what you are’ and my ‘being what I am’ are one thing! Not similar, not alike, one . But there is no Dasein without Wassein . The universal ‘that’ of Dasein is incurably linked to the particular ‘what’ of Wassein . Undifferentiated Dasein ‘borrows uniqueness’ from Wassein ; like a virus, it infects Qualia with Being . Wassein is finite; Dasein is infinite (eternal). It is. It is is. It is is once only. Dasein is incurably one, just as Wassein is incurably many. The coincidence of Dasein and Wassein is what Whitehead called an ‘Actual Entity’: the many expressed as one and the one expressed as many. The Universe consists exclusively of Actual Entities. When an Actual Entity (AE) has run its course (i.e., ‘achieved satisfaction’), it transitions to ‘Objective Immortality’ (OI). Ab initio , every AE is sui generis ; it can literally become anything it wants, provided what it wants is compatible with the Actual World (AW) it inherits. I’m 5’ 9” and 75 years of age – “I know who I am, and I know that I can be whatever I want to be”, but that does not include playing basketball for the Boston Celtics. That is incompatible with my inherited Actual World. Once an AE enters OI, it is , it can no longer not be , nor can it be other than what it is; it is no longer an Actual Entity. An Actual Entity is process; once an AE becomes ‘settled matter of fact’, it ceases to be ‘in process’ and so ceases to be an AE. And Dasein ? When an Actual Entity passes into Objective Immortality, what happens to its Dasein ? Absolutely nothing! Nothing can ever happen to Dasein ; if it could, it would be Wassein . Dasein is eternal and universal; it occurs only in the context of Wassein , but it is entirely uncolored by such associations. When an Actual Entity becomes settled matter of fact, Dasein no longer ‘associates’ with that specific Wassein , but it remains associated with the Wassein of all remaining Actual Entities. The fate of Actual Entities per se is governed by cosmology: Big Bang, Big Freeze, etc., the details of which are well ‘above my pay grade’…but they don’t matter anyway! (Sorry, Professor Hawking.) What does matter is this: Every unique Actual Entity comes to be as a reaction to a unique Actual World. That Actual World is a nexus that includes the OI of every logically prior AE. There is an Actual World that is a nexus of all Objective Immortalities. The Actual Entity that corresponds to this uber-nexus is what we used to call “God”. Does that mean that we are all ultimately God? Not exactly. For God, Dasein and Wassein (existence and essence) are a single phenomenon (note that this is a restatement of the old ontological argument for God’s existence). For us, however, Dasein is always distinct from Wassein . Therefore, God is ‘essentially good’, while we, at best, are ‘accidentally good’. The ‘non-identity’ of Wassein and Dasein is Free Will . So the Bible had it right all along. We are the image and likeness of God ( Dasein ) but not God himself ( Wassein ). Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Happiness David Cowles Apr 13, 2023 “If we somehow manage to convince ourselves that the purpose of life is our own personal happiness, then we are in for a world of hurt.” Today, everyone is looking for the meaning of life, its purpose, what, if anything, makes life worth living? The consensus (not unanimous) of western philosophers is that the purpose and meaning of life is ‘personal happiness’. This is an oxymoron . When we say something has purpose or meaning, we are connecting that thing to something outside it; but happiness is not ‘outside’ the happy person, so the concepts of purpose and meaning can’t apply here. X cannot be the meaning of X; otherwise, ‘meaning’ would have no meaning . The meaning of X can only be found somewhere in ~X. Personal happiness refers only to X. If we somehow manage to convince ourselves that the purpose of life is our own personal happiness , then we are in for a world of hurt: “… Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself (love). Happiness must happen…” (Victor Frankl) “Happy? Anyone can be happy. What’s the purpose of that?” (Bob Dylan) How could things have gone so wrong? The divine values, Beauty, Truth, and Justice are values that everyone in every life circumstance is free to pursue to the best of their ability. Happiness, on the other hand, is often dependent on fickle circumstances. We may find it hard to ‘whistle a happy tune’ in the face of crushing poverty, chronic disease, unrequited love, or personal tragedy. It would be nice if we could smile our way through life’s vicissitudes…but it’s unrealistic. The ‘happy slave’ is, for the most part, ‘bourgeoisie fiction’. If anything is the purpose of life, realizing it should not depend at all on things beyond our control. Rephrased: if the proposed ‘purpose of life’ is something outside our control, then that cannot be a purpose . A purpose can only be a purpose if it can be achieved; otherwise, it’s just a fantasy. Beyond this, there is a cultural element at play. In our culture, children no longer have any intrinsic value! They exist for the enjoyment of their parents. They exist to be loved; what can possibly be wrong with that? Not so long ago, things were different. Couples conceived explicitly to produce offspring that could be an economic asset. Kids were raised to help run the house, the farm, the ranch, the store, or the loom. Every child had a purpose! Hopefully, they were also loved. Today, at least in the Atlantic community, children have no short term economic value . Ask any parent managing the cost of daycare, summer camp, groceries, and college tuition… As good parents, and of course, we are all good parents, it’s easy to make our children’s happiness Job One. Who then can blame a child then who, upon graduation, continues to steer her ship solely according to that beacon? I have lived a full life. I married, had children and grandchildren, built a successful business that created jobs, enhanced the wellbeing of tens of thousands of customers, provided a comfortable living for my family, and left me with plenty of playtime! Looking back, I see that playtime , such a source of happiness for me at the time, is the least important part of my story. I don’t regret it per se , but I see it now from a different perspective. Caring for others and helping to smooth their way in the world still seem like a worthy ‘purpose’; enhancing my short-term personal happiness does not. It would be nice to think that I was motivated by the opportunity to care, and that I used my playtime merely to recreate . It would be nice…but then I’d be writing about another man. The minute I put the tuba down, the music stopped. What happened to all that happiness? Is it stored-up somewhere in a vault? Can I make periodic withdrawals of principle? Oh well, I have the memories…at least for another few years, I hope. How I treated others, good and ill, will reverberate through the universe until Big Freeze; how much I enjoyed the foie gras at Biba in 1990 will not. As pupils in a parochial (Catholic) elementary school in the ‘50s, we did not have this problem. Every September, we’d take our seats on the first day of class and that day we would learn just two things: God is the supreme being who made all things. God made us to know him, love him and serve him. First grade? Eighth grade? Same lesson! No reference to personal happiness or ‘self-actualization’. The alleged Death of God has made such catechetical memes unintelligible to my grandchildren. I don’t worry about them now, they’re fabulous; but I do worry about where they’ll be when they finally decide to put their own tubas aside. Will they look back at all that’s left undone in their lives, and say with me, “Gee, I could have had a V8?” Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Why We Must Pray Michael G. Pravica "It is our prayers that will, God willing, save the world and our souls because God will know us." At fundamental level, our universe consists of quantum particles (integral spin bosons such as photons, deuterons and gluons, and ½-integral spin fermions such as protons, neutrons and electrons). One of the most fascinating characteristics of these particles is that identical particles are indistinguishable from one another (i.e. they cannot be labeled) [1] and follow laws of quantum statistics that are dramatically different from the laws of distinguishable classical particles/entities that we are more familiar with where objects (e.g. balls, playing cards or cars) can be labeled. For bosons, Bose-Einstein statistics governs their behavior [2], and for ½ integral spin particles, Fermi-Dirac statistics determines their behavior [3]. The strange behavior of tiny quantum particles is one of the most fascinating mysteries of the quantum world and it is from these principles that our classical world is constructed. As living beings who are made from these indistinguishable particles, it is easy to argue along a similar vein that we, too, are indistinguishable. Of course, this is not true at the classical level. Yet, our constituent particles (molecules, atoms, nuclei, electrons, etc.) all return to the immense reservoir of matter in our universe and remain respective indistinguishable particles when we die. Thus, there is something more about us that makes each of us unique in the universe (i.e. we are more than just the sum of our constituent parts): our soul. I have argued before [4] that the soul is likely an infinitely dimensional or at least higher dimensional gift from God, who is likely an infinitely dimensional being who made our four-dimensional universe and likely many more. Thus, God established a special connection between humans so they could be “God-like” which has nothing to do with the constituent quantum particles that assemble our physical bodies. However, after the Original Sin, God decoupled from humanity so that humans could understand that life without God (and obedience to God) will be extremely challenging. The essence of humanity’s struggle is to reconnect with our Creator. 1 Corinthians 8:3 states: “But whoever loves God is known by God [5].” Loving God takes many forms such as helping our fellow humans in need, glorifying Him and acknowledging His ability to help us through seeking Him (prayer). I will focus on prayer in this brief essay. God gets to know us when we pray to Him. It is God’s love that gives each of us our uniqueness and removes the degeneracy of “indistinguishable souls” as God knows each and every human being who loves Him and thus has Faith in Him. Satan is jealous of us because he lost this very special connection to God. Those who do not seek God end up becoming indistinguishable souls (at least to Satan) which God does not interact with. They get lost in the quantum mechanical chaos of our universe. We maintain our connection with God (which was created at conception) by praying to and believing in Him. This special connection enables us to spiritually transcend our universe and connect with our Creator just as Michelangelo depicted Man reaching out and trying to touch the hand of God in his Sistine chapel painting. This is the essence of the connection: mutual interaction via transcendent everlasting love. Love is the most powerful force in all of God’s Creation. Just as in pre-WWII times, we are on the precipice of a devastating conflict (WWIII) which will destroy humanity. More than ever, we need to bring God back into our world to illuminate, expose and ultimately vanquish the evil that Satan is perpetrating here to destroy us. God will save us if we pray to Him and demonstrate to Him that we love Him as He loves us. Satan seeks to disrupt our unique connection between the Lord and His children in the four dimensional spacetime world that He created for us to live, enjoy and glorify Him in. Satan is trying to turn us away from our Creator by tricking us into worshipping inanimate elements inside this universe that constitute indistinguishable particles (e.g. the Golden Calf) and focusing on cold materialism instead of on our God-like essence by dissuading us from following Jesus Christ. Prayers to God are transmitted via the super dimensional transcendent Holy Spirit which not even Satan can stop as he is trapped in this four dimensional spacetime. It is these prayers to our Father that will, God willing, save the world from its self-destruction and at the least save our souls because God will know us. This is why, more than ever, we must pray. This was originally published on Medium. References: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_statistics 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%E2%80%93Dirac_statistics 4. https://english.pravda.ru/science/129528-soul/ 5. https://biblia.com/bible/esv/1-corinthians/8/3 Return to Harvest 2024 Previous Next

< Back Finding Light: A Prayer for Wisdom and Forgiveness Bryon David Embracing clarity, forgiveness, and purpose Despite life's events, the acts I've chosen to participate in, even the most perspective-shifting times I've been through, leave me with the same sense of self I've always had. I thank God for the peace of having an immovable, strong place to return to. Choices are the sole navigation tool I've found to help keep me there. I don't choose what thoughts come, but I decide what to do with them. I don't always remember to hold myself to that level of responsibility, and I get off track. I will myself, with the help of the spirit I want with me versus the ones who are always attempting to mislead me, to find myself in a place that feels right. Some questions beginning to arise at this point include: how, knowing of all the great and small tragedies of the world, am I ever supposed to feel easy? Of the times I've chosen wrong, am I forgiven? How do I find forgiveness, and how much of my perspective is the same as others around me? Am I alone? A place I find myself in is looking at the meaning of infinity, full of fear but more full of hope. The vastness of it leaves a sense of loneliness, even when I know I’m not alone. It could all be a dream teaching me to be a certain way or produce something, but why me? I am convinced by reality. What is my goal, or what goal does God have for me? Is it the same for all of his followers? Jesus wants us to Love each other, be truthful, find understanding in him, and help or comfort anyone we can. Personally, my biggest struggles have been centered around truthfulness. In the confusion of the thoughts that arise, remember how to return to this or whatever your motivation may be. Stay with thoughts you know are true. A thought I can think of is always there if I’m awake. I am awake, but why am I here? This one always hits me. I was born, I have lived through my time, and every choice has led me here. Am I happy here? It’s hard to say I’m satisfied for reasons I’ve already mentioned, but what am I doing to help those I worry about? I work to help my family and feed myself, but what good do I do outside of them? I ask for help. Lord Jesus, let me hear and understand where the real problems are that I am supposed to work out, and help me act on them with the help of your spirit. Thank you for the opportunity to live and for all you do for us. Amen. Image: Feelings. Painted by Bryon David. Bryon David is just one “weird” person and a sinner trying to do his best. “I believe Jesus Christ is the one true God and my only hope. I believe this after much time spent challenging this belief in many ways. He truly is the only way I know. I write when I feel inspired–fiction, true stories, thought trains, and prayers when they can help someone.” Click above to return to Winter 2024. Previous Next

“You’ll end up living life as though you were counting cards at a Black Jack table in Las Vegas – in other words, profitably! But it’s still gambling.”    < Back Philip Goff David Cowles Mar 1, 2024 “You’ll end up living life as though you were counting cards at a Black Jack table in Las Vegas – in other words, profitably! But it’s still gambling.” Philip Goff is a breath of fresh air: he’s a philosopher on the faculty of a major university (Durham), whose work is published by Oxford University Press. He maintains that existence may have an objective purpose, and he is willing to at least consider a role for ‘God’ in the overall scheme of things. In the end, Goff rejects what he describes as the Abrahamic (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) ‘Omni-God’ (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) but nonetheless posits the possibility of a transcendent, purposeful entity. Goff is willing to entertain the ‘God Hypothesis’ provided God’s knowledge and power are somehow limited, or God’s benevolence is impure or conditional. So, Goff’s latest book, Why - The Purpose of the Universe , was eagerly anticipated. Unfortunately, it disappoints. Goff fails to make a clear distinction between the sort of God he excludes a priori and the sort he might entertain. His characterization of ‘Abrahamic divinity’ oversimplifies. Any concept of omnipotence is limited by what’s possible, omniscience by what’s knowable, and benevolence by what’s doable. God cannot square a circle any more than you can! He cannot fashion a rock that is too heavy for him to lift. These logical and material fallacies have nothing to do with divinity. God is Good…in fact, God is Value per se . That’s really all you need to know. God does not ‘have values’ or ‘determine’ values; God is Value! Value is the efficient cause and the final cause of everything that is. I mean, what else could be? Why else would anything ever happen? It is said, “Love makes the world go round.” The same could be said of ‘the Good’. In fact, Love and Good are denotatively synonymous. Every novel event begins and ends with Value. Value is the sole motivator: it alone allows us to execute judgment on ‘the gods of Egypt’ (i.e., on what is ). Motivated by Value, we push off from shore; guided by Value we seek the horizon. Value alone guides us to create what might be . Between these two poles, Alpha-impulse and Omega-goal, each event shapes itself. It is causa sui and sui generis . It is informed by only two things: (1) the Actual World ( what is ) and (2) God’s values ( what might be ). “Some folks see things as they are and ask why; I dream of things that never were and ask why not.” (Bobby Kennedy) Between motive and immortality, each event is 100% free – free to react to what is, free to pursue what might yet be. This is what Goff calls ‘libertarian free will’; it closely resembles Sartre’s notion of absolute existential freedom. Robert Frost illustrates this concept in his most famous poem, The Road Not Taken . Out for a stroll in the NH woods, Frost comes to a fork in the road. He knows that both paths will take him to his destination. Yet he agonizes over the choice: “Both that morning equally lay.” Frost’s location and destination were hard-wired; his route was entirely undetermined. Every event (→) begins and ends with what is (Actual World → Objective Immortality → Actual World). In the context of this ontology, Abraham’s God is the same as Goth’s. The notion of an Omni-cubed (∞³) God is a straw man, set up only to be torn down. It’s easy to disprove the existence of something that is impossible, something that makes no sense on its face. Goff’s work is about God and Consciousness…and he gets them both wrong. Early on, he dismisses strong AI, claiming that there is something ‘special’ about the neuronal stuff he’s made of (i.e., his organic chemistry). Later, however, he proposes the possibility that the cosmos itself may be conscious ( Cosmo-panpsychism )…and the cosmos is not (primarily) made of neurons…or any other ‘special stuff’. Here, Goff carries a good idea too far. He not only posits universal consciousness, but he also maintains that all actual entities are rational agents . No doubt, events change the world (though we can’t reliably predict how), and events exhibit internal patterns. But those patterns cannot be reduced to rationality, nor can all changes be chalked up to agency. We are, I think, on the cusp of discovering that intelligence, and even consciousness, is platform-agnostic. In fact, the essence of panpsychism is the conjecture that ‘consciousness is everywhere’, that it pervades cosmos. It appears likely that many, if not all, organisms are conscious (or at least self-aware) in some way and to some degree, and there are strong reasons for wanting to extend the net to include certain inorganic phenomena…like computers. Goff posits three activities that make life worth living: “creativity, learning, and showing kindness to others," but he makes no effect to substantiate his claim that these values are somehow sewn into the fabric of the cosmos. The discovery of Value raises key questions: How is it that there is such a thing as Value? How does Value come to influence the course of events? By what faculty are we able to access Value? I agree with Goff that the answers to these questions are tied to the matter of consciousness. I would go even further and argue that Value is impossible without consciousness. Consciousness is reflection; it’s the universe ‘taking a selfie’, i.e., reflecting itself reflecting. Consciousness is what Universe sees when it sees itself. But reflection is comparative. I conceptualize A in the context of ~A. Judging A on the basis of the values it manifests requires an external perspective that also encompasses ~A and the set of universal values by which we may judge A. Goff rejects, I think too easily (below), Pascal’s argument for the existence of God (his famous “Wager”), but Goff replaces it with a ‘modern’ version called ‘Bayesian Logic’. According to this ‘science of inference’ we can validly reason upstream (induction) as well as down (deduction). In a nutshell, assume there is an event, A. If we don’t directly know anything about any events other than A, can we deduce something about everything else based on our experience of A? Were Leibniz and Blake right after all? Is every event a reflection (monad) of every other event? Can we discover “a universe is a grain of sand”? Crazy, right? Well, not entirely. If we know that A is very likely to occur, provided B has occurred before it, and if we know that A is very unlikely to occur unless B has occurred before it, then our experience of A lets us presume, provisionally at least, that B has occurred. Apply this to the matter of God: If there is a God according to the Judeo-Christian prototype, then it is likely that the created world would be well-ordered. If there is no God, then spontaneous ordering would be very, very unlikely . The world is extremely well-ordered (i.e., the degree of fine-tuning is astronomically improbable). ‘God’ accounts for that fine-tuning better than ‘no-God’ accounts for it. Therefore, it is likely that God exists…very, very likely! As with Pascal, Goff’s conclusion comes down to a so-called ‘Wager’, but the nature of that wager is very different. Goff uses Bayesian Logic to establish the existence of ‘God’ as highly probable . With Bayes, you end up living life as though you were counting cards at a Black Jack table in Las Vegas – in other words, very profitably! But it’s still gambling. Pascal is a whole different kettle of fish! His argument has nothing to do with probabilities, so his ‘wager’ is a wager in name only. Pascal’s argument is based on something much stronger…and much more ephemeral. Pascal is prepared to divide the World in two: on one side, A - the set of all things/events that make a difference, that have consequences, that change things, that mean something; on the other side, B - the set of all things/events that do not belong to A, i.e., that make no difference, have no consequences, change nothing, mean nothing. Every event X in Set A is associated with a proposition P of the form, ‘X exists’ and with proposition P’ of the form, ‘P is true’. Therefore, the proposition ‘X exists’ is always true, provided that X is a member of A. For Pascal, at least, A is the set of all things that exist, and B is the set of…nothing. Anything that might have belonged to B doesn’t exist. So, B is the null set, ø. In fact, it’s a ‘double null set’ ø² – a null set of null elements. (Ok, I made that up!) But in any event, the only set that has real members is A. Therefore, whatever belongs to A exists. What does this have to do with God? Pascal notes that God’s existence makes no difference if we don’t believe it, and that our beliefs about God make no difference if God doesn’t exist. Therefore, the existence of God is only meaningful if we believe it, and our beliefs about God are only meaningful if God exists. Therefore, there is only one meaningful solution to the problem: God exists, and now that I know that for certain, I cannot not believe. While I disagree with Philip Goff on many things, we are all indebted to him for helping to move conversations like this one back into the public domain. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Spring 2024. Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Jacob the Patriarch David Cowles Dec 21, 2023 “Jacob was a bit of a rascal. He was a wimpy kid who cheated his brother and perhaps his employer to line his own pockets… (he) is ‘the patriarch for the rest of us.’” The relationship of Biblical stories to modern life is sometimes uncanny. Take the story of Jacob, for instance (Genesis 25–31). He is the third Patriarch of Israel, following Abraham and Isaac. His life story, like so many of our own, falls naturally into three distinct periods. First, Jacob’s youth. Genesis tracks Jacob’s curriculum vitae from conception; it even provides details of his mother’s pregnancy. Jacob turns out to be the second born of two twins, though he struggled with his brother (Esau) in Rebecca’s womb, each boy trying his best to secure the right of primogenitor. Like the not-always-so-cute twin boys down the street, Esau and Jacob competed for their parents’ affection. Esau, a ruddy athlete and an accomplished hunter, won Dad’s heart, while Jacob, the more introspective of the two, was the apple of Mom’s eye. What Jacob could not win with strength in the womb, he won with cunning in the world. Through a series of ruses, he wrested the right of primogenitor from Esau. When Jacob came of age, childhood over, Isaac blessed him and sent him out into the world to win wife and wealth. Retracing the route of his family’s historic migration to Canaan, Jacob traveled back across the Euphrates to the city of Harar, once home to his grandfather, Abraham. There, he worked for his uncle, Laban. Over time, Jacob earned the right to wed Laban’s two daughters; after 20 years, he left his uncle’s employ, taking with him his spouses and his children, a retinue, and flocks of goats, sheep, camels, donkeys, etc. ‘Rabbit is rich!’ Jacob has aced adulthood. But now he must return to his roots. He needs to reconcile with his brother and reconnect with his father. His narrative picks up right where it left off…after a 20-year hiatus. Sidebar : In Jacob’s era, life expectancy was just a bit more than half what it is today; Jacob’s story reflects that. He was probably no older than 15 when he received his father’s blessing and headed off toward Harar to make his fortune. Likewise, his period of production & procreation spanned just 20 years, compared to our usual 40. That still left the average male up to 15 years to enjoy the fruits of his labor and to reflect on the meaning of his adventures. There’s a lot of Jacob in all of us. Compared to heroic Abraham and holy Isaac, Jacob was a bit of a rascal. He was a wimpy kid who cheated his brother and perhaps his employer to line his own pockets. It’s a plot straight out of Succession …or Washington, D.C. Most of us would be more than happy to receive a ‘Gentlemen’s C’ from St. Peter. Even a C- would do nicely, thank you. A few of us might aspire to sainthood (B’s) but I doubt if any of us is seriously striving to be a patriarch. (That takes an A and only three confirmed A’s have ever been given out…though rumor has it that Job, Jesus, Peter and Paul may be on the list as well). Enough of Jacob; let’s get back to us. By hook or by crook, we just managed to get through childhood when suddenly we found ourselves confronted with the need to earn a living and, perhaps, support a family. Like Jacob’s labors, our work in the world is all-consuming; we have little time for whatever existential concerns remain unresolved. But kids grow up, and careers come to an end, happily or otherwise, at retirement. We no longer bear the full weight of the world on our shoulders. We are free to turn our attention back to ourselves. Who we are is once again more important than what we do. Now back to Jacob. He worked hard for Laban and produced great wealth, which benefited Laban and his family for 20 years, but he did it using Laban’s capital. When the time came for Jacob to depart with his ‘earnings’, Laban’s sons protested. Whose dollar is it? But Jacob didn’t wait around for a panel of ‘bent’ judges to rule against him; he did ‘what was right in his own eyes’ (Judges 21:25). He took what he thought he deserved and made off for Canaan. And so the first shot was fired in the war between capital and labor – a battle that is still raging today. Every time a union is formed, every time a strike is called, and every time a corporation pays a dividend to its shareholders or a bonus to its executives, you’re hearing the rumble of this war. Back in his home country, Jacob assumed the role of peacekeeper. He made a covenant with Laban, who had pursued him across the Euphrates. He reconciled with his brother Esau after conferring on him huge gifts of livestock. He slaughtered men who had raped his daughter, and he did his best to promote peace among his own warring sons. He followed the way of Voltaire: he tended his own garden. In this Jacob embodied the Eschaton, when ‘the wolf will lie down with the lamb’. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are all called to make peace – not to eliminate differences, but to transform intensity-dampening conflicts into intensity-enhancing contrasts. The world needs Abrahams and Issacs and Jobs, for sure, but Jacob offers a different model of sainthood. Jacob is ‘the patriarch for the rest of us’. Like us, he swims in uncharted waters, trying to find a channel between survival, self-interest, duty and fairness. How’d he do? I doubt many of us would give him a ‘10’. But he did good enough to please God, and what else matters? Image: 14th century. Fresco. Pomposa Abbey, Codorigo, Italy. The story is from Genesis 27:1-40. The image does not follow it in a linear order. At left, Esau goes hunting with bow and arrow to get meat for a meal for his blind father, Isaac. At right, Jacob comes to his father and claims to be Esau with a dish he has prepared from the game he caught. Believing that this is Esau, Isaac gives him his blessing. In the middle, Esau has returned and is bringing his father another dish with game from his hunt. He will be distraught when he learns of Jacob's trick, which has left him without his father's blessing. Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Trees According to life-long forester Peter Wohllben (The Hidden Life of Trees), trees communicate via electrical signals transmitted through their roots. Fungi connect the roots and form a “wood wide web”. Communication is at 220 Hertz and signals travel at 1/3rd of an inch per second…not exactly the speed of light. David Cowles According to life-long forester Peter Wohllben (The Hidden Life of Trees), trees communicate via electrical signals transmitted through their roots. Fungi connect the roots and form a “wood wide web”. Communication is at 220 Hertz and signals travel at 1/3rd of an inch per second…not exactly the speed of light. In addition, trees form friendships and recognize both their parents and their offspring. Finally, trees practice charity. Stronger trees share water and nutrients with less well endowed neighbors. Through this process even stumps can live on for hundreds of years. As a result of these processes, each tree has the opportunity to “grow into the best tree it can be”. One is reminded of the U.S. Army’s recruiting slogan, “Be all that you can be” and the Hebrew concept of Shalom. The question, of course, is whether there is anything approaching consciousness involved in this symbiosis. The rate of signal dispersion is so slow by our standards that we probably wouldn’t recognize it if there was. Also, we could be looking at a different kind of consciousness, a collective consciousness for example. Share Previous Next

< Back The Sacred Pause of Autumn Deborah Rutherford "In our spiritual rest, we draw near to God and bask in His presence in prayer, our Bibles, and His beautiful creation." Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. Mark 4:39 NKJV My husband and I were captivated by the first fall leaves that descended gracefully as the wind picked up. Like all storms, this one came and went, shaking the globe, and the leaves fell like snow in autumn. At that precise moment, I sensed a profound invitation from the Lord and all His creation to step out of the glass globe—our windowed house—and into the open. This invitation was not just to feel the cool air on our faces or pick up a leaf, but to experience a "sacred pause." This is where we can step back from the storms of life, whether brooding, gales, or on the horizon, with complete confidence that just as Jesus rebuked the wind and calmed the sea, He can do the same for us. This sacred pause is a moment where we take a break from the busyness and demands of life and instead relish quiet communion, drawing near to our Creator. It is a time to reflect, feel the Creator's touch and caress, and partake in the beauty of autumn. This intentional pause for deep connection and meditation with God strengthens and refreshes us. Autumn is the perfect season to pursue wonder. Did you know that God has been pausing since He first created the world? In Genesis 1:31, we read: "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day" (NKJV). Yes, during God's six days of creation, He paused daily to look at His creation and delighted in it: • God paused. • God looked at His creation. • God delighted in His creation. God invites us to delight with Him in this sacred pause. Unsurprisingly, God's creations, including us, bring Him immense joy. This is how much God loves us. Isn't autumn a unique and perfect opportunity to slow down and partake in the sacred pause with God? To share in His delight and seek His wonder? God created us to have a relationship and fellowship with Him and to enjoy His creations. Our participation is welcomed and vital for revitalizing and refreshing our weary, storm-ridden souls. There will be times soon enough when we must step back into our daily routines, but in this interlude, we will be refreshed and strengthened for the ebbs and tides of life. In autumn, the Lord beckons us to draw near to Him and all of creation in a celebration. Are we not awestruck when we wake to vibrant hues painted on the sunrise? Every day, as we walk outside, a new leaf glimmers gold, followed by reds and oranges. The air is fragrant with fresh pine and foliage, while our kitchens simmer with spices and warming stews. The beauty of this lovely season is a testament to God's majesty and creation. We must pause with our Creator in autumn's celebration—how can we not! Here, we recognize that we are more than to-do lists, jobs, troubles, and schedules; we are, in fact, a part of creation itself. By pausing, we find we are in step with creation. I do not know about you, but I would rather be a part of the creation dance than apart from it. Our porch party lights are the stars twinkling in the sky. The feast is laid out in the fields, and the orchestra is the flocks of migrating birds going home. Oh, we belong too, and I find this so comforting and reassuring, don't you? We are part of our Creator's beautiful symphony. Autumn is the time of year when the Lord invites us to pause with Himself and creation. In this pause, we reconnect with our Creator and all of creation. As the warmth of summer fades and cooler temperatures arrive, all creation begins a transformation. This collaboration between the Creator and the created has been ongoing since the beginning of time, and we are an integral part of it. At this time of year, nature transforms to prepare to rest for winter; shouldn't we do the same? In Psalm 46:10, the psalmist writes, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (NKJV). Here again, God is inviting us to pause with Him. In this sacred pause, we experience God's presence and sovereignty in creation. When we draw near to God, He draws near to us. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8 NKJV). A pause may seem counterproductive with all the delights of the fall season or our day-to-day demands, but that is precisely why God asks us to be still, to draw near to Him—to pause. Here in this sacred pause, we savor God's goodness and delight in what He has prepared for us. There is a place for us at His bountiful table. In all this, God prepares and strengthens us for approaching situations, transformation, and new blooms. But just as nature needs a rest, so do we. In our spiritual rest, we draw near to God and bask in His presence in prayer, our Bibles, and His beautiful creation. But how do we pause with the Creator and embrace autumn's beauty? Here are some ways to pause, reflect, and connect with God and nature this autumn: • Pray and reflect as you read your Bible. Ask God questions like: Do I need to let go of anything? What is my growth and transformation in this season? Am I depleted from life's tempests, and how can I be strengthened and refreshed, Lord? • Step out into creation by going on a nearby hike, visiting a pumpkin patch, or attending a fair (I love seeing all the farm animals at our fair). • Rejoice in the fields' harvest and reflect on your own harvest. Taste the harvest foods, such as apples, pumpkins, and blackberries. • Listen to the music of the wind, the rustling leaves, bird songs, and the crackling of campfires. • Observe the stars at night and feel the universe singing a beautiful song. Immerse yourself in the beauty of autumn, and let it resonate within you. • Gather to celebrate and give thanks to the Lord. Open your home for long, lingering conversations, dinners, and candlelight. • Look for the unexpected blessings, and you will find them. Since the beginning of time, this sacred pause has coaxed the temperatures down and caused the trees to transform. The harvest is ready in the fields. All these blessings, abundance, goodness, and beauty bring joy to our hearts. In our sacred pause, let us rejoice in the Lord and dare ourselves to gather and prepare candlelit dinners and have those long conversations. Let us pursue God’s wonder! This sacred pause leads to the Holy Feasts, Advent hymns, and Holy Days. As we pause to celebrate the harvest, we also plant the seeds in anticipation of the coming Christmas season. The ebb and flow of creation's seasonal pause is God's masterpiece, the beauty of life. We were created to live in creation, not apart from it. There will always be storms on the horizon—some seen, some waited for, some just dumped—but with intentional drawing near in the presence of God, we will be strengthened for the days ahead. A Sacred Pause Prayer Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for creating me and all Your creations. How loving of You to pause, look at, and delight in me. I accept Your invitation to draw near as I read, pray, and linger in my Bible. I delight in Your creation this autumn and will pursue wonder. I yearn to be in Your Presence! Help me to slow down this season so I can rejoice in You. Help me to be still. Do not let a day pass where I do not step out into creation and delight in Your beauty and love. In this sacred pause, strengthen me, Lord, for the coming storms of life. I know You will always be with me. I rejoice in You, Lord, who brings hope in the breeze, transformation, and harvest as I gather to dwell, celebrate, and prepare my heart for You. In Jesus' name, Amen. Deborah Rutherford is a Christian wife who loves to write stories, devotionals, and poetry. She is also an award-winning makeup artist. Deborah shares her journey of faith, joy, and beauty on her blog at www.deborahrutherford.com and social media. She is a contributing writer for Aletheia Today Magazine , Kingdom Edge Magazine and Gracefully Truthful Ministries and has a devotional in the book “Shepherd on Duty: Promises of God you Can Trust ” (Arabelle Publishing) and the Calla Press, Literary Journal Spring 2023. Return to Harvest 2024 Previous Next

"That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered." < Back Mary Magdalene, The Witness Rachel Held Evans Apr 15, 2023 "That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered." Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news:“I have seen the Lord!”—John 20:18 The story of how Mary Magdalene became known as a prostitute is a complicated one. One of six Marys that followed Jesus as a disciple, she was distinguished from the others through identification with her hometown of Magdala, a fishing village off the coast of the sea of Galilee. According to the gospels of Mark and Luke, Jesus cleansed Mary of seven demons, (a backstory infinitely more complicated and mysterious than prostitution, if you ask me), after which Mary became a devoted disciple, mentioned by Luke in the same context as the twelve, who traveled with Jesus and helped finance his ministry. In 597 pope Gregory the Great delivered a homily on Luke’s gospel in which he combined Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany (Martha’s sister), suggesting that this Mary was the same woman who wept at Jesus’ feet in Luke 7, and that one of the seven demons Jesus excised from her was sexual immorality. The idea caught on and was perpetuated in medieval art and literature, which often portrayed Mary as a weeping, penitent prostitute. In fact, the English word maudlin, meaning “weak and sentimental,” finds its derivation in this distorted image of Mary Magdalene. In 1969, the Vatican formally restated the Gospels’ distinction between Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the sinful woman of Luke 7, although it seems Martin Scorsese, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Mel Gibson have yet to get the message. A cynic might suggest that this mistake and its subsequent popularity represent a deliberate attempt to typecast and discredit a woman whose role in the gospel story is so critical and so revolutionary that the eastern orthodox Church refers to Mary Magdalene as equal to the apostles. Although she appears to have been a critical part of Jesus’ early ministry, Mary Magdalene’s extraordinary faithfulness shines most brightly in the story of the passion. After Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, his male disciples abandoned him. Judas delivered him over to the authorities for a bribe. Peter denied him three times. And only John, described as “the apostle whom Jesus loved,” was present at the crucifixion. But Mary Magdalene and the band of women who followed Jesus and supported his ministry are described by all four gospel writers as being present during the savior’s darkest hours. Even after Jesus took his last breath, and all hope of redemption seemed lost, the women stayed by their teacher and their friend and prepared his body for burial. It is precisely because they were present, loyal even through failure, that the women who followed Jesus were the first to witness the event that would define Christianity: the resurrection. Gospel accounts vary, but all four identify Mary Magdalene as among the first witnesses of the empty tomb. According to the synoptic Gospels, she and a group of women rose early that fateful morning, three days after Jesus had died, to anoint the body with spices and per- fumes. When they arrived at the tomb, they were met by divine messengers guarding the entrance, who declared that Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he said he would. The women immediately left the tomb behind and, “with fear and great joy” (Matthew 28:8), ran to tell the other disciples. Luke notes that on their way, they remembered what Jesus had taught them about resurrection, confirmation of the fact that these women had been present for some of Christ’s most important and intimate revelations and that they took these teachings to heart. But when the breathless women arrived at the home where the disciples had gathered, the men did not believe them. Women were considered unreliable witnesses at the time (a fact that perhaps explains why the apostle Paul omitted the women from the resurrection account entirely in his letter to the Corinthian church), so their proclamation of the good news was dismissed by the men as an “idle tale,” the type of silly gossip typical of uneducated women. Perhaps the men invoked the widely held belief that, just like their sister Eve, women were easily duped. A few, however, were curious enough to take a look at the tomb, and so, according to John’s account, Mary returned with peter and another disciple to the place she had encountered the messengers. The men saw for them-selves an empty grave and a pile of linen wrappings folded neatly within it, and conceded to the women that the tomb was indeed empty. However, John 20:9 notes, “they still did not understand from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” The men returned to report what they had seen to the rest of the disciples, leaving Mary behind. Perhaps disciples posited the theory that Jesus’ body had been stolen, for John wrote that Mary, once so full of breathless excitement and impassioned belief, now stood outside the tomb, crying. Angels appeared and asked her what was wrong. “They have taken my Lord away,” she told them, fully accepting the disciple’s dismissal of her “idle tale." The angels were then joined by a mysterious man, whom Mary assumed to be the gardener. He, too, asked why she was crying. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him,” she pleaded. Only when he called her by her name, did she recognize the man as Jesus. “Mary,” he said. “Rabboni!” she cried. “Do not hold on to me,” Jesus urged as she fell before his feet, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” And so again, Mary Magdalene ran to the house where the disciples were staying and told them she had seen the risen savior face-to-face. “I have seen the Lord!” she declared. But it was not until Jesus appeared to the men in person, allowing them to touch the wounds in his hands and side, that they finally believed. Far from being easily deceived, women were the first to make the connection between Christ’s teachings from scripture and his resurrection, and the first to believe these teachings when they mattered the most. For her valor in twice sharing the good news to the skeptical male disciples, the early church honored Mary Magdalene with the title of Apostle to the Apostles. That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered. And yet too many Easter services begin with a man standing before a congregation of Christians and shouting, “he is risen!” to a chorused response of “he is risen indeed!” Were we to honor the symbolic details of the text, that distinction would always belong to a woman. *** This was an excerpt from A Year of Biblical Womanhood. This piece was republished with permission from rachelheldevans.com . *** Image: "Christ and St. Mary Magdalen at the Tomb." Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669). Royal Collection Trust. Rachel Held Evans was a New York Times best-selling author whose books include Faith Unraveled (2010), A Year of Biblical Womanhood (2012), Searching for Sunday (2015), Inspired (2018). Hailing from Dayton, Tennessee—home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925— she wrote about faith, doubt and life in the Bible Belt. She was featured in The Washington Post , The Guardian , Christianity Today, Slate, The Huffington Post, The CNN Belief Blog, and on NPR, The BBC, The Today Show, and The View. She served on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and kept a busy schedule speaking at churches, conferences, and colleges and universities around the country. Rachel and Dan welcomed their second child in 2018. Rachel passed away in 2019. Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? 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< Back Bakunin Nailed It “Writing at the same time as Kierkegaard, 10 years before Nietzsche, and 50 years before Heidegger and Sartre, Bakunin got it right.” David Cowles It’s Sunday night and I’m doing what every boy does on a Sunday night: I’m reading 19th century philosophy; tonight, it’s Mikhail Bakunin (1814 – 1876). Bakunin is not ordinarily grouped with the ‘Metaphysical GOATs’ (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel). At best he is relegated to the 2nd tier, the cloud of social philosophers. In fact, however, Bakunin can be thought of as the St. Paul of Anarchism. He didn’t invent anarchism, but he systematized it and popularized it as an alternative to the sterile socialism of Mark and Engels. But even this is to sell Bakunin short. Turns out, he was a Metaphysician - First Class after all. For example, he wrote: • “Man is able to project himself in his thought, examining and observing himself like a strange eternal object.” Check : This is precisely what Nietzsche said could not be done. • “By lifting himself in thought above himself, and above the material world around him, he reaches the representation of perfect abstraction, the absolute void.” Check : This is Kierkegaard’s Abyss . This is what John saw when he broke the seventh seal. • “And this absolute (void) is nothing less than his capacity for (perfect) abstraction, which disdains all that exists and finds its repose in attaining complete negation. This is the ultimate limit of the highest abstraction of mind; this absolute nothingness is God.” Check : “I am not what I am and I am what I am not.” ( Sartre ) Nailed it! Writing at the same time as Kierkegaard, 10 years before Nietzsche, and 50 years before Heidegger and Sartre, Bakunin got it right. How so? We find ourselves ‘thrown’ (Heidegger) onto the ‘beach of being’, ignorant, defenseless, thoroughly lost. Our one goal is to survive! Survive now ( praxis )… and develop a strategy to survive long term ( gnosis ). We are surrounded by entities other than ourselves. We quickly see that our survival depends on understanding these entities, and ultimately, on influencing them. Viewing those entities through the prism of Indo-European language, we label them things (nouns) or events ( verbs ). ‘Things’ and ‘events’ are somewhat imprecise labels we affix to phenomena . We classify a phenomenon as a ‘thing’ or as an ‘event’ depending on whether we wish to call attention to its endurance (Parmenides’ Truth) or its transience (Heraclitus’ Flux): “Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.” We are like the away team on a future starship, dispatched to the surface of exoplanet XS325W to map its terrain – except, we are not mapping an exoplanet; we are mapping Being itself. Life is like a game of Battleship . It begins with a completely unconditioned ‘guess’. We note the results, and we add their coordinates to our emerging world map . This is my one and only random move. Every future move will be ‘informed’ by the results of all the moves that came before it. Gradually, we move from absolute ignorance to something approaching certain knowledge. As we push the buttons and pull the levers that constitute ‘the world’, we are simultaneously mapping the terrain. We call this ‘science’. I’m hungry, I cry, I get fed. Now I associate crying with satiety, and I hypothesize a causal relationship between the two: post hoc ergo propter hoc . For the rest of my life, I will test and refine this hypothesis and look to extend it to other ordered pairs (of data) I uncover along the way. Needs multiply: feed me, change me, sooth me. My gestures (crying) modulate. Crying works for this but not for that . A certain ‘style of crying’ seems better correlated with a certain result. My map of the world is gaining definition. As I get older, my crying becomes more nuanced and less obvious, but make no mistake about it, I’m still crying, right up to the very end. Ah, the gift of life! Our survival is at stake from the moment of our birth (or conception). My first awareness is an awareness of discomfort, if not pain. In the language of the existentialists, we are the being whose being is always in doubt. Our being is inseparable from our mortality. I resort to a series of random gestures in hopes that something will make this pain go away; et voilà, something does! Or does it? Have I discovered causality (Laplace)…or coincidence (Hume)? I will need to test my proposed correlation until I am so sure of the causal link that I am willing to ‘bet my life on it’. Once satisfied, I can fill in my map with its first data point, an ordered pair (X = my behavior; Y = my comfort). Over the next 30,000 days or so, I’ll discover, test, and map many more such correlations. Primal awareness is strangely complex: I am aware of phenomena that I classify as ‘self’ and I am aware of phenomena that I classify as ‘not self’. From my perspective, this is the primal distinction (not darkness and light as in Genesis ); but by itself, it does not even come close to capturing the experience of being human. What’s missing? Me! I’m missing from this model. I am aware of the phenomena, ‘self’ and ‘not-self’, precisely because I am neither . If I were ‘self’, then there would be no need, or even function, for ‘not-self’. ‘Self’ would form a self-contained universe, and we could have no knowledge (or need) of anything outside it. If ‘I’ am an element of ‘self’, then I am perfectly redundant and therefore my very existence is a violation of Occam’s Razor: I am de trop . On the other hand, it is hard to ignore the intuition that there is something fundamentally different between observing and being observed. Objects are observed; subjects observe. Granting for the moment that there is nothing more to conscious awareness than the operation of a network of neurons and excluding the possible existence of some mysterious, spiritual anti substance, it is still difficult not to notice the difference between a subject’s awareness of an event and the objective event itself. “They’re not even the same sort of thing.” A world ‘with me’ and a world ‘without me’ would be exactly the same world; but ‘to be’ is not to be the same but to be different, novel, unique, to matter, to have consequences, to leave footprints in the sand. According to Gregory Bateson and Alfred North Whitehead, ‘to be’ is to be different and to make a difference. Were ‘I’ to be merely an element of ‘self’, I would not matter, I would make no difference, my being would have no consequences, and the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life , could have never been made. Quelle domage! Even so, I think it is safe to say that a majority of contemporary philosophers, scientists, etc. believe we live in just such a world – a world in which ‘I’ is an element of ‘self’. I say ‘believe’ because for many reductionists, mechanists, positivists and naïve realists, the proposition ‘I ɛ S’ is a matter of deep, almost religious, conviction: “It is this way because it has to be this way , even if it’s not!” We cling to our ‘enlightened’ secular model even though it predicts a universe that is frozen, lifeless, devoid of all novelty, a world in which Achilles loses a road race to a tortoise – in other words, a universe that has virtually nothing in common with our world. The human experience is dialectic: I am aware of ‘self’ ( thesis ), I am aware of ‘not-self’ ( antithesis) and I am aware of ‘being aware’ of self and not-self ( synthesis ). Neti, neti (Sanskrit): not this, not that, the keyword being ‘not’. I am by being-not and being-not is a form of abstraction. When I am ‘not this ball’, I am abstracting from the ball its location, momentum, and sensory appearance. ‘To be’ I must have something ‘not to be’. I cannot not-be ‘ball’ per se because ‘ball’ is a noumenon, a Platonic Idea, not a phenomenon. According to Kant, I ‘kan’t know’ a noumenon; I can only know its phenomenal aspect. Therefore, I cannot not be or not be ‘ball’ per se ; I can only ‘not be’ the ball’s various characteristics. To abstract is to de-concretize , and so “perfect abstraction” would result in an “absolute void”. I am the relentless spirit of restlessness at the heart of Being. As such, I “disdain all that exists”. I ‘negate it’ and it is only in such negation that I find any measure of “repose”. (Bakunin) “Eternal rest ( gnosis ) grant unto them, O Lord, and may the perpetual light shine upon them.” Rest in peace is not a final farewell. It is a battle cry: “Be Human!” David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Previous Next

< Back Judas Taught Me the Beatitudes E.C. Argus This nasty turn unnerved me, so I gathered myself together and drew a table with my comfortable beatitudes on one side and my uncomfortable ones on the other... Poor Judas! We click our tongues over you. You’re our object lesson in missing the point. I feel sorry for you, but come on, why couldn’t you get it? I’m glad I haven’t missed the point. Or Judas, could I be more like you than I’d like to admit? One day I was pondering the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), and I was thinking about the people Jesus was looking at. I smiled, as I pictured Jesus gazing directly at me. “Blessed are you…yours is the kingdom.” What a nice, warm feeling; I was in His camp, on the right side. Ah. Yes. Suddenly, I was Judas. Jesus looked right into my eyes, and He said directly to me, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…the meek…the merciful…the peacemakers.” This did not feel good. I wasn’t sure whose camp I was in, whose side I was on. Uh. No. But Jesus, I like the other beatitudes better: “Blessed are you who mourn…who hunger and thirst for righteousness…the clean of heart…persecuted for the sake of righteousness.” These beatitudes comfort me. They are my badges of honor. You see, I am an expert in many things. I have all the answers . If I were the Queen of the World, everything would work . I have plans and agendas. I have ideas . Oh boy. This nasty turn unnerved me, so I gathered myself together and drew a table with my comfortable beatitudes on one side and my uncomfortable ones on the other: I did a little rearranging, and four new dyads emerged: Mourning Poor in Spirit Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness Peacemakers Clean of Heart Merciful Persecuted Meek I saw each dyad as a two-sided coin or a double-edged sword, and I took a deeper look. [1] Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Someone like me, who has all the answers, mourns the broken state of the world. I have pet issues. My mourning tends to quickly morph into anger, rage, and aggrieved fury. I seek comfort by knowing I’m right, even if everyone around me doesn’t get it. I suspect this is how Judas might have felt. But Jesus didn’t just drop the mourning piece unaccompanied. He set us up with poverty of spirit . I have long grappled with this puzzling beatitude. But I think it means, “Blessed are you who know you don’t have all the answers. You know you depend on God to work many things out -- things that are too big for you to fully understand.” This beatitude requires real humility and self-acceptance. Could poverty of spirit re-inform my mourning? Could I mourn the losses I experience -- the frustration, the sorrow -- in the light of utter dependence on God? Could I find comfort, not in being told I’m right, but in the comforting arms of a father? Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. I’m sure Judas was attracted to Jesus because he hungered for, thirsted for, things to be put right. I do too. I talk about being on “the right side of history.” I also want to be right with God, to get that A. Outstanding. Superior. But what if being in a right relationship with God is about something much bigger than me? Much bigger than my pet issues, as worthy as they may be? Maybe making peace belongs on the path to righteousness. When I know there’s conflict, maybe it’s an opportunity to sow peace, to heal, to mend, to bind together. And here’s the kicker: maybe my blustering quest for righteousness kicks up too much dust, and human relationships choke in the wake. It’s hard to live with righteous people. I want to hunger and thirst for it, and I want to be a peacemaker. Could it be that each of these two beatitudes falls off track without the other? Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. I see this dyad as two sides of holiness, one side focused inward, the other side focused outward. Clean -- or pure, as we more commonly say -- hearts are swept free of sin. Clean hearts have no secrets; they live in the light, especially before God. Clean hearts don’t deceive themselves. Clean hearts desire only good. But clean hearts can also grow proud, and cold, and judgmental. Judas must have had a narrow definition of purity -- who’s in; who’s out. When I’m so focused on my own holiness, chasing after purity, that I look down on others as inferior, I’ve missed the mark. When I’m so focused on my own holiness that I despise parts of myself that stand in the way of that imagined pure destination, I’ve missed the mark. Maybe mercy is the antidote. Maybe mercy, regularly practiced, is the grounding, practical, earthy, humble, necessary counterpart to cleanness -- to purity. Mercy is messy. Mercy gets all over us; it’s not neat or clean. Mercy is gritty. Jesus must have delighted in people who had clean hearts and dirty hands. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. If there was ever a beatitude Judas might have treasured, it’s the persecution one. This is a self-appointed martyr’s dream. Persecution is great, because we get to shift the blame onto someone else. We are the victims. We are not responsible. God will avenge us. But hold on, what about meekness ? Jesus blessed those who, in the face of persecution, chose to be quiet, gentle, and easily imposed upon; submissive. [2] Maybe without this gentle tempering, the crown of persecution becomes a whitewashed sepulcher. After all this musing, I came up with this idea: I call the four beatitudes about mourning, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, cleanness of heart, and persecution the “Purity Beatitudes.” And the four beatitudes about poverty of spirit, peacemaking, mercy, and meekness are the “Unity Beatitudes.” The Purity Beatitudes are focused inward, toward private holiness. They fill us with an internal strength about what is right and supply us with righteous anger in the face of evil. This is good. But I see a danger here, if we spend too much energy in the Purity column, at the expense of the Unity column. We could easily drift into self-aggrandizement, pomposity, self-pity, snobbery, and isolated independence -- smirking critically outwards. The Unity Beatitudes are about self-abnegation, humility, vulnerability, and interdependence -- focused lovingly outwards. But without the astringent Purity Beatitudes, we could become flaccid Christians with weak boundaries around what is holy -- quick to forgive, but blind to sin and unwilling to name it. The Beatitudes are comforting and challenging at the same time. In the end, Judas missed the point. I’m sure it broke Jesus’s heart. May I not miss the point. Image: Judas ' Regret by Jose Ferraz de Almeida Júnior. Oil on Canvas. 1880. References [1] New American Bible RE, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [2] Oxford Languages, languages.oup.com, Oxford University Press E.C. Argus is a Catholic Christian citizen of planet Earth, engaged in a life-long quest to understand reality as a player in God’s great rescue project. She hopes her small takes on the greatest story ever told might bring light to someone’s darkness or help to lift a burden from someone’s bowed shoulders. She spends a lot of time outside, in awe of the complexity and beauty of the natural world. She makes a living creating and teaching the performing arts. Previous Next