As we observe the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his landmark book, On the Origin of Species, evolution has become firmly established as the central organizing principle of the biological sciences. Natural explanations for the growth of complexity through time ground all the other sciences, as well, from cosmology and chemistry to neuroscience and psychology. That everything within this universe has emerged through natural processes operating over vast spans of time is now well beyond dispute among scientists and the educated public. Yet even today, families and public school systems remain divided and the evolutionary worldview is still shunned by millions, perhaps billions, of religious believers around the world. Why?

One reason is surely that big changes in thought and perspective take time to be assimilated. A deeper reason is that humans do not live by truth alone. We require the sustenance of meaning—of beauty, goodness, relationship, and purpose. We require comfort in times of sorrow and suffering. We also require perspectives that encourage us to cooperate in ever-wider circles in order to solve ever-larger problems—problems that today encircle the globe.

So long as the scientific worldview is presented in ways that ignore these basic human values—values that religions excel in providing—there is little hope that the devoutly religious will appreciate science for anything more than its technological fruits. The good news is that the coming decades will see each of our religious, ethnic, and cultural stories embraced within a larger sacred context.

The scientific history of cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity is our shared sacred story—our common creation myth. It is an epic tale that reaches back billions of years and crowns each and every one of us as heir to a magnificent and proud lineage. This Great Story is open to improvement, as the revelations of science yield new insights, offer new ways of seeing, and alert us to misperceptions. It is open to change, too, whenever more helpful and inspiring interpretations of the facts become available. All this is possible, moreover, without scientists needing to fear that religious interpretations will skew or shade the truth. Nor must religious peoples join the ranks of atheists.

In public lectures that distill the contents of this book, time and again I have seen faces light up when I explain the distinction between private revelation and public revelation and when I advocate the importance of both day language and night language. Both pairs help us value the contributions of objective science without dismissing the subjective realms—artistic, emotive, and spiritual—that served our ancestors for thousands of years and still vitally serve us today. During seven years of itinerant evolutionary evangelism, I have watched young and old alike delight in the astonishing fact that we are made of stardust—that the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, and other atoms of our bodies were forged inside ancestor stars that lived and died before our Sun was born. I have seen, too, this naturalized and cosmic understanding of death comfort those whose grief would not otherwise be consoled.

Scaling down to the inner realm, I have witnessed tearful testimonials from those freed from years of guilt, shame, or resentment after learning our brain’s creation story—that is, how the brain, with its embedded instincts, reflects an evolutionary trajectory from reptilian ancestors to early mammals, primates, and hominids. Others are grateful for the practical tools for improving lives and relationships that an evolutionary understanding of human nature affords. Still others have found that the supernatural claims that linger in the creeds and liturgies need not drive them from cherished traditions of their faith.

Sanity, health, and joy each emerge and are sustained only in right relationship with reality. Thank God for Evolution is thus a call to integrity, to wholeness, to sustainability—individually and collectively. In the year since its publication, events have validated and expanded the understanding of deep integrity outlined herein. From sex scandals in politics to crimes of greed on Wall Street, the underbelly of modernity and postmodernity is now vividly apparent. Thanks to discoveries in evolutionary psychology and evolutionary brain science, however, we can begin to improve institutions so that vital social structures can thrive despite human foibles. Equally, we can look to a future in which religious worldviews are free of the fundamentalism that fuels extremism.

How was the world made? Why do earthquakes, tornados, and other bad things happen? Why must we die? And why do different peoples answer these questions in different ways? The big questions that children have always asked and will continue to ask cannot be answered by the powers of human perception alone. Ancient cultures gave so-called supernatural answers to these questions, but those answers were not truly supernatural—they were prenatural. Prior to advances in technology and scientific ways of testing truth claims, factual answers were simply unavailable. It was not just difficult to understand infection before microscopes brought bacteria into focus; it was impossible. Without an evolutionary worldview, it is similarly impossible to understand ourselves, our world, and what is required for humanity to survive. For religious leaders today to rely on prenatural answers puts them at odds not only with science but with one another—dangerously so. Their resistance, however, does make sense. Until scientific discoveries are fleshed into the life-giving forms of beauty and goodness (as well as truth and utility), scriptural literalism will command power and influence.

A meaningful view of evolution is good news for individuals and families, and also for communities, nations, and our world. It is good news at these larger levels because a sacred, deep-time understanding of history and our evolutionary heritage is the very foundation needed for facing global challenges of our own making. It will encourage us to act, moreover, with compassion and inspired dedication. I offer this book and its stories of awakening toward this noble and necessary end.

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One of the most important truths revealed in recent centuries is this: everything—the entire Universe—is in an ongoing process of deep-time transformation.  Galaxies and star systems evolve.  Planets evolve.  Life evolves.  Human cultures evolve.  Individuals and groups of all sizes evolve.  And our personal and collective thinking about life’s big questions (including our concepts/stories of Ultimacy, God, or Undeniable Reality) evolve, too.  Reflecting on this is, I suspect, what led Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to write:

“Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis?  It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, and all systems must bow and satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true.  Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.”

Over the next few weeks, I will elaborate on The 7 Deadly Sins of Old-Time Religion, taking them one at a time.  I will show that there are 7 profoundly negative consequences of religious resistance to a measurable understanding of time and emergent view of grace.  Specifically, I will reveal how, from a religious naturalism point of view, a pre-evolutionary worldview frozen within scriptural literalism necessarily…

1.  Trivializes God, guidance, and good news.
2.  Balkanizes religion and bastardizes science.
3.  Desacralizes nature.
4.  Blasphemes death.
5.  Fails our children in three tragic, unnecessary ways.
6.  Denies individuals and families access to the most important saving wisdom for overcoming personal and relational challenges.
7.  Blinds us from seeing the true nature of the current global integrity crisis.

Everything must evolve in order to remain viable.  Three billion years ago, life (bacteria and archaea) thrived in a context of 2% oxygen.  Today, anything less than 15% oxygen would wipe out all mammals.  In an ever-emerging, ever-developing Cosmos, conditions that were once healthy and lifegiving can later become dangerous or even deadly—which is, of course, why life must be so adaptive.

Traditional religions will either evolve like everything else or, paradoxically, they will destroy nearly everything they stand for, or perhaps just go extinct.  I’m betting my life that they will evolve, and will become more lifegiving then ever—not just for their own members but for the entire Earth community.  This is, indeed, why I wrote Thank God for Evolution, and why my wife and I have been living on the road for 7 years, sharing a sacred, meaningful view of cosmic, Earth, life, and human history with religious and secular audiences across America.

The boldest creedal assertions are in the future, not the past.  I foresee a time in the not-too-distant future when churches and other religious organizations preach and teach the science-based epic of evolution as our common creation story, and when this story is seen as foundational for moral instruction and teaching values to the next generations.  Widespread awareness of The 7 Deadly Sins of Old-Time Religion will, I pray, significantly further this process.

Stay tuned…

The idea of an eternal life-after-death without pain or struggle, yet with awareness of the everlasting torment of others (those who did not believe as I did), I consider hell, not heaven.

I no longer merely believe in God.  Thanks to the worldwide self-correcting scientific enterprise, I now know that facts are God’s native tongue.  Evidence reveals God’s nature, God’s ways, and God’s guidance far more accurately than could have possibly been revealed to the biblical writers.  Few things are more unflattering than imagining that God spoke more clearly to goat herders and fisherman in the distant past, through dreams and intuitions, than through cumulative evidence discerned by the global community of scientists today.

In an evolutionary context, theism is trivialized if it is thought to be solely, or even primarily, about otherworldly matters and unnatural entities.

Christian naturalism is an evo-theistic, or creatheistic, perspective that transcends and includes traditional flat-earth conceptions of God.  Like Evolutionary Christianity, it doesn’t reject the possibility of a supernatural realm.  But it does focus on, and primarily value, what is natural and unquestionably real.  And the fact that such a science-based way of reframing and celebrating the core insights of religion has been endorsed by 5 Nobel laureates and other leading scientists, as well as by religious leaders across the spectrum, suggests to me that Christian Naturalism has a glorious future.

ALSO SEE:

The Unnaturalist Fallacy
Imaginary gods vs. Reality/God: Part 1 and Part 2
God is NOT a Supernatural Terrorist
How and Why I’m a Pentecostal Evangelical
Traditional Religion’s God Problem
Evolution as Meaningful, Inspiring Fact
The Great Blasphemy?

I am posting this a month after President Obama’s inauguration. It is intended to introduce a concept that has been growing inside me for several years and that aches to be launched for others to help shape. For now, I shall call this meme global integrity:

Global integrity is right relationship at and with all nested levels, from the personal to the planetary, valuing the past, benefitting the future.

I believe that promotion of this concept could play a crucial role in moving through the crises now facing our nation (and the world).  It establishes an easy-to-understand frame for discerning helpful actions when problems would otherwise seem too big or complex. Global integrity, as I define it here, has a distinctly religious cast. Hence my invitation to religious leaders to join me in discerning what role religion can play in helping our new president and a newly hopeful citizenry in transitioning through this crisis.

Surely I am not alone is sensing that a brilliant, dedicated, and charismatic president absolutely depends on our help. It is only a matter of time before Mr. Obama explicitly calls upon religious leaders to undertake the task of restoring the moral and ethical fiber of individuals and institutions in our nation — but this time with respect to failings that led to the financial/economic crisis we are now in and the ecological crisis that looms.

Integrity is not just about politicians’ private parts or the private lives of citizens; it’s about our survival as a species. If religious leaders were to make this shift in focus, we would most surely discover that differences in beliefs and many of the seemingly irresolvable contentions of the past few decades fade into the background. Instead, religious leaders of vastly different faiths and political leanings will find substantial common ground. The common ground, I suggest, is integrity. If religious institutions do not step into the task of vigorously working for more integrous relations and systems at all levels within society, then who will?

NESTED LEVELS

Thanks to the sciences, we empirically know that reality is best understood as nested levels — like nesting dolls or concentric circles — in both space and time. Spatially, subatomic particles reside within atoms, within molecules, within cells, within creatures, within ecosystems and societies — and all jostling around this one planet — cycling here, recycling there, and ultimately powered (mostly) by the Sun. Temporally, that same nested sequence tracks the order of evolutionary emergence as it actually took place over the course of 13.7 billion years. That is, this physical sequence correctly reflects the development of these things over time, thereby identifying ancestral origins and relationships. Subatomic particles originated before molecules; molecules had to emerge before there could be cells, and so on, all the way up to human civilizations and our global ecosystem that includes them all.

We need a new concept of integrity that embraces all of this larger reality we are becoming increasingly aware of.  Because of its nested, multi-level focus, global integrity offers a powerful framework for addressing problems by attending to both the forest and the trees at the same time. At its core is this understanding:

When right relationship breaks down at any level in a system, it cannot be restored sustainably without also shoring up the integrity of lower and higher levels — especially one level down and one level up from the focal problem.

This “one up / one down” directive was set forth in a rather technical paper published in 1984 by a group of ecologists and foresters (see the full citation for Allen, T.F.H. et al on this reference list). This paper has become a classic in general systems theory and has also informed the complexity sciences. Part of its beauty is that it lays out a middle way for using this nested (also known as hierarchical or holonic) understanding of reality. To be sure, nestedness means that changes we intentionally or inadvertently make within one level may trigger changes within quite a few levels up and/or down. If policymakers or opinion leaders get too wrapped up in assessing all the systemic changes that might result from a proposed action within any one level, decision gridlock will ensue and this helps nobody. That’s where one-up / one-down comes in handy. At minimum, 3 levels of the system are always brought into play when assessing and then dealing with any problem.

THE FLAW IN CLASSICAL ECONOMICS

A recent Op-Ed by New York Times columnist David Brooks is a fine example of this multi-level approach to understanding problems and then attempting to solve them.  In “An Economy of Faith and Trust” (01/15/09), Brooks writes (my highlights),

Once, classical economics dominated policy thinking. The classical models presumed a certain sort of orderly human makeup. Inside each person, reason rides the passions the way a rider sits atop a horse. Sometimes people do stupid things, but generally the rider makes deliberative decisions, and the market rewards rational behavior.

Markets tend toward efficiency. People respond in pretty straightforward ways to incentives. The invisible hand forms a spontaneous, dynamic order. Economic behavior can be accurately predicted through elegant models.

This view explains a lot, but not the current financial crisis - how so many people could be so stupid, incompetent and self-destructive all at once. The crisis has delivered a blow to classical economics and has taken a body of psychological work that was at the edge of public policy thought and brought it front and center.

In this new body of thought, you get a very different picture of human nature. Reason is not like a rider atop a horse. Instead, each person’s mind contains a panoply of instincts, strategies, intuitions, emotions, memories and habits, which vie for supremacy. An irregular, idiosyncratic and largely unconscious process determines which of these internal players gets to control behavior at any instant. Context - which stimulus triggers which response — matters a lot.

“In this new body of thought, you get a very different picture of human nature,” writes David Brooks. At its core is the new understanding that even our brains are nested in both space and time. We are not of one mind; each of us has four minds emerging from one brain and these (no surprise) represent the sequence of their evolutionary emergence. The rational, thinking, endlessly talking-to-itself neocortex is not, in truth, in charge. We think it is in charge because that is the part of our brain of which we are most conscious. Of course, we all know that emotions play a role in our own most important and deliberated decisions, as well as our spontaneous outburts. But we consciously reflect on those emotions, consider all the facts, weigh all the options — don’t we? Guess again.

This “very different picture of human nature” is effecting great shifts in theory and practice at the level of understanding individual motivation and behavior: psychology. Those shifts, in turn, will increasingly work their way into the field of sociology — how groups of individuals behave.  Both fields will vitally contribute to an overhaul of the field of economics, now in disarray.

Recall that in October of 2008 “former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan denied the nation’s economic crisis was his fault on Thursday but conceded the meltdown had revealed a flaw in a lifetime of economic thinking and left him in a ‘state of shocked disbelief.’”

We can’t entirely blame a fault in classical economics and faith in an unbridled free market for the financial crisis facing us now. After all, until science had anything credible to say about why “rational choice” is naïve, how could it have been otherwise? (As I will explain below, “rational” too often simply means “rationalizing” — something we are very good at, indeed.) The benefits of free-market economies emerge from the collective activities of its components, the activities of components emerge from human choices, and human choices emerge from human nature as it plays out in different contexts. A lapse in integrity, in “right relations,” at any of those subsidiary levels will bleed upward into the economy as a whole. And the design of the economic system, itself, has everything to do with which aspects of our full-spectrum humanness predominate in our economic interactions.

My own tradition, Christianity, has evolved central doctrines and helpful practices around the acknowledged fact that we are imperfect (read “fallen”) creatures. A scientific understanding of our moral imperfections has us understand that we are driven by powerful inherited urges interacting with our “environment” — the evolved and constructed social systems and conditions we live within. This naturalizing of our troublesome drives may also be helpful in moving us out of denial when those troubles escalate into persistent problems, addictions, and major social crises. After all, each challenging urge deserves to be appreciated and valued in this sense: it must have a somewhat noble history in that it insured our ancestors’ survival and reproduction. And each social system we’ve had — both “good” and “bad” — has played a major role in moving us on to something better. We can be grateful for both these blessings.

A CRISIS IN INTEGRITY

The imperfections of human nature are not only evident in the ponzi-scheme charlatans, bank CEOs and CFOs, unscrupulous mortgage lenders, and the institutional and governmental structures that make integrous personal action unfit in the world of finance. The imperfections of human nature are also evident in any of us who ever “played” the stock market or who sold our modest home in order to move into an investment — that is, a house and landscaping far beyond our needs and our means but intended to be sold short-term for a profit. Thus the housing bubble and bust is evidence of a ponzi-scheme too: Many of us fell for that one; we believed — and our social systems supported us in believing that we lived in a world without limits — or that at least we ourselves would get out before the house came crashing down on the next buyer or the one after that.

One way to look at this is that our nation suffers today because our nested systems of governance failed to protect us from the consequences of our own less-than-integrous ways of investing personal money and from our own ignorance and self-deception. But if all we ask of our social systems is that they protect us from the consequences of our non-integrous actions — as the current bank bailouts do — then those systems make it harder for us to learn from our mistakes and support the emergence of even greater crises in the future. Rather, we need not only for people and institutions to exercise greater integrity, but we need social systems that themselves have integrity — that protect and further the well-being of the larger social and ecological communities we are all part of by making it easy and rewarding for individuals and corporations to be integrous in everything they do.

A crisis in integrity at all levels — from system design to regulator to board of directors to accounting to mortgage broker to individual investor/home-buyer — all this brought us to where we are. We face a tremendous opportunity for moral reconstruction within a much expanded sense of integrity that is fit for our 21st century realities and challenges.

OUR BRAIN’S CREATION STORY

President Obama, in his inaugural address, indicated that science and technology would be called upon to be major players in his plans for national recovery and transformation. Indeed, as I hope the president will soon come to appreciate, science and technology are giving us a whole new field of possibilities for understanding human nature — both individual and collective — as it really is, not as we might merely wish or presume. These possibilities were unavailable to previous legislators, regulators, economists, and others involved in shaping the relationship between governance, markets, and individuals. It truly can be a whole new world.

For example, a particular technological advance of the 1990s, functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI, made it possible, for the first time, for scientists to actually track what is going on in a human brain that is not dead or sedated. The fMRI pictures of our brains in action have forcefully demonstrated the need for psychologists and sociologists to subsume their understanding of human nature and social behavior within the evolutionary worldview. The human brain did not originate out of nowhere, and it surely was not intelligently designed. The human brain is itself a nested system. Scientists  speak of a “Reptilian Brain,” a “Paleomammalian Brain,” and a “Neomammalian Brain” — all taking up residence within (and effectively constituting) our brain. None of us is of one mind, whether we are aware of it or not. Rather, each of us is a menagerie of minds.

Worse, the most powerful drives within our brains are also the oldest (the most deeply nested) and the least subject to conscious control or sublimation. The desire to copulate, to eat, and to be safe, along with the territorial aggressiveness that supports all three drives, were just about all that our reptilian forebears needed to attend to. (Think of the sum total of what your average iguana cares about.) Those drives are still with us, of course, and they lurk in the part of our brain known as the brain stem (our Inner Iguana, or Lizard Legacy). You might consider the brain stem and its drives as the basic life force within us. Those drives are still absolutely essential, but also deeply problematic in societies with guns, crowding, unemployment, junk foods in fabulous supply, psychotropic substances no longer linked to rites of passage or other religious occasions, and visual and audio sexual stimulants just about everywhere (especially on the internet). Worse, because we experience the urges that these drives evoke, rather than know the urges, we will unconsciously act on impulse unless the newest part of our brain is called into action: the prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex (at our forehead) is the executive seat of our brain. Here our higher purpose (which I like to call our Higher Porpoise) resides. If our impulses are to be checked or overruled in order to honor a commitment previously made (e.g., to eat healthfully, exercise daily, study, take out the trash, fix the leak, drive safely, remain faithful, handle our money conscientiously, limit our time with the television or the computer, get our taxes done, stay away from alcohol), then it is our prefrontal cortex that will be doing it for us. The bad news is that this part of our brain won’t properly develop and keep fit without sufficient exercise, continuing exercise. And it is the last part of our mental equipment to mature — not until the age of 22 to 25. Young people will thus always be impulsive; that is their nature. The good news is that 20 year olds — although they may be running up credit card debt and though they may be dangerous drivers — are generally not buying homes, lending money, investing in the stock market, running companies, or doing creative accounting with somebody else’s money. We can ignore them for the moment; they will not likely bring down the system using the exotic financial instruments so beloved by alpha males older than their early 20s.

MASTERS OF SELF-DECEPTION

What we can’t ignore is that your and my and Mr. Obama’s brain (and that of his predecessor) have evolved to be masters of self-deception. Social psychologist and noted author Jonathan Haight is a leader on this topic and on other aspects of how our evolutionary history informs psychology and sociology. Briefly, let’s say we have committed to something important (perhaps honesty), but a deeper part of our brain — the evolved brain region concerned with status (more on that in a moment) — urges us to dissemble. What do “we” do?

Consider that our rational neocortex evolved on top of the older, status-conscious part of our brain: our Paleomammalian Brain.  Paleomammalian — the brain of rabbits and wolves and chimpanzees — is the seat of our emotions and of our drives to care for kin, enter into bonded relationships, and be socially successful and admired. On these crucial matters, our Paleomammalian Brain (which I like to call our Furry Li’l Mammal) may be just, if not more, insistent than our Inner Iguana.

The fact is, our rational, thinking capacities evolved in order to serve the more ancestral parts of our brain (although they’re now needed for other purposes; more on that soon). So unfortunately, those older drives are still very much in control.  Here’s how the system works: When our external situation or inner condition triggers an urge, the rational brain steps in to assist. That assistance might be nothing more than figuring out where the nearest bathroom is. But if our prefrontal cortex has some issue with acting on that urge — perhaps “we” have made a commitment to abstain from a particular activity-then things get interesting.  Our rational brain (which I like to call our Monkey Mind) swings into action big time.

If the prefrontal cortex has beefed up at the “gym,” the rational mind might have ready access to a solution to honor this part of the brain without triggering a hissy fit in the Furry Li’l Mammal or displeasure in the iguana down below. Maybe the prefrontal cortex has already collaborated with Monkey Mind to ensure that there is absolutely no junk food or alcohol in the house. Maybe the prefrontal cortex directed Monkey Mind to program into the cell phone the number of a support-group member.  Maybe the prefrontal cortex made sure that the body worked out this morning or did some yoga, and so the unwelcome urge is not quite so insistent.

The default pattern, however — what we get if we haven’t taken the effort to do otherwise — is for those powerful lower drives to win out. In such cases, our rational mind will get busy devising a way for the deep drives to be met, while inventing a rationale that convinces the prefrontal cortex that its commitments have been honored, too. In a way, Monkey Mind’s own self-interest is to stay out of trouble, to keep the peace. To do that, it becomes a master of invention — and deception. For example, Monkey Mind might offer up these possibilities for action: Go ahead and purchase the ice cream, but make it the low-fat variety. . .  Pour just half a shot. . . Whoops! I forgot to check my engagement calendar this morning. . .

STATUS AS AN INSTINCTUAL DRIVE: GOOD AND BAD NEWS

An inborn capacity to deceive oneself is crucial to understand, but so are many other insights derived from the new evolutionary approaches to understanding our brains and our behaviors. Notably, another very useful insight is that our Paleomammalian brain is powerfully driven to achieve and be concerned with issues of status.

A drive to achieve and hold onto high (or at least somewhat higher) status is in us because, at crucial junctures in the past when times were very tough, the only humans, hominids, primates, and social mammals to survive and reproduce were those who had managed to achieve high enough status to secure safety and sustenance for themselves and their offspring.  High status also conferred benefits with respect to the quality (and sometimes number) of mates. These high-status achievers are our ancestors, and we inherited their instinctual quest for status — if not all their gifts and talents for achieving it.

Notice how the mammalian quest for status is, itself, partly an in order to. High status fulfills on ancient drives within the Reptilian Brain, not just the deep mammalian concern for one’s offspring and the continued well-being of one’s mate.

That the need for status is innate is both good and bad news. In America, high achievers driven by the quest for recognition and admiration, if not always by the prosperity that high status may (or may not) afford, tend to be the movers and shakers responsible for new businesses, new inventions, new uses of existing technologies, new discoveries in science, new ideas in politics, new artistic offerings, new intellectual insights and syntheses, and so much more.

A downside, of course, is that the quest for status can be diverted into the quest for the trappings of status — things that make us appear to be more successful than we really are. Unquestionably, this shadow side of the drive for status played a role in the insane rate at which home values escalated in the decade prior to the crash. It has played a role, as well, in the scourge of excessive levels of credit card debt.  Spiritually, it contributes to our sense of dissatisfaction with our material circumstances; it diminishes our ability to experience gratitude for what we do have.

Good news is that status is not measured in absolutes by the Furry Li’l Mammal within us. Status is sensed as a relative condition. How does our material wealth and station in life compare to that of our co-workers, our neighbors, our siblings, our acquaintances in church? Where do we stand in the eyes of others?  What this means is that a very bad economic downturn is felt as less bad so long as enough of your co-workers, neighbors, siblings, church acquaintances — indeed, fellow citizens — plunge down with you. An economic downturn, properly addressed, can actually bring us more together to improve our communities, our country, our world, with the new status being reserved for those who best help us do that.

THE CENTRALITY OF RELIGION

There is a remarkable opportunity here for religion to ally with both science and social movements to reframe and expand integrity for our new era and bring it to the forefront of our public discourse. President Obama will need to call upon religious institutions for assistance in ramping up global integrity as it manifests at the level of individual citizens, institutions, and the structure and functioning of entire social systems. As well, he will need our help in shifting cultural norms so that greater value is placed on integrity and that people understand the larger context within which we need to practice it. Are the kind of enlightened integrous actions and new systems we’re talking about held up for others to see and admire?  Will the day come when one would no more cheat on taxes or support a law that rewards narrow self-interest than cheat on one’s spouse?

Perhaps the greatest living evolutionist is Edward O. Wilson. Among other achievements, he founded the field of sociobiology, the behavior of social animals including humans. In 1999 Wilson was named “Humanist of the Year.” Many forms of humanism shy away from traditional religous language and concepts, yet Wilson has no interest in doing away with religion. Rather, he has written of religion’s “centrality to human culture.”

Nevertheless, Wilson and his collaborators (e.g. David Sloan Wilson) also know that religion is not actually or only about belief. Religions that have stood the test time may have used belief toward their success, but belief is just one possible element that contributes to the basic functionality of any religion. Philosopher of religion Loyal Rue states these functions succinctly in his 2006 book, Religion is Not About God. To persist, religions must contribute in supportive ways to three core functions: (1) personal wholeness [personal integrity], (2) social coherence [social integrity], and (3) ecological integrity.

Notice that the core functions of religion span three nested levels: the personal, the social group, and the ecological systems in which all individuals and societies are embedded. Great! Religious leaders can bring religion full square back into the public and governmental sphere by shaping public opinion and cultural norms in ways far more important to our economic wellbeing and national stability than opposition to or support for gay marriage and abortion. Religious leaders will still be dealing with matters of morality and ethics, but this time, matters that all of us need help with and encouragement toward — social liberals as well as social conservatives, theological liberals as well as the theologically conservative.

AN INVITATION

During this crisis in our institutions and our nation, I invite religious leaders to set aside our differences in belief.  At least temporarily, let us focus entirely on integrity. Let us develop our understanding of and encourage global integrity — integrity at all nested levels. Those who are willing to share with their congregants the latest discoveries that are reshaping the fields of psychology, sociology, and cultural evolution will have access to a wealth of new and powerful tools and other practices to assist their members in growing into more integrous, satisfying lives. But even those who decline the evolutionary worldview can contribute by emphasizing the core values of integrity that are universally recognized: honesty, humility, service, trust, and concern for all the nested levels of our existence.

“I wonder if you can answer a question. I had my son and at another time my son-in-law listen to your presentation and they came to the same conclusion: they both said that you reduced God down to a metaphor. Can you tell me that is not so?”

My response: Yes, this is not so! But the fact that two young men had pretty much the same reaction to my sermon suggests to me that either,

• A.  I’m not very good yet at assisting people in distinguishing imaginary gods from the real Creator, or
• B.  We as a species have a long way to go before we truly get the difference between trivial and realistic notions of the divine.

My hunch is that both of these are the case.

To make matters even more interesting…

Yesterday I received an email from a man who had read my book, reported that he enjoyed it, and offered the opposite criticism. He suggested that, in my section dealing with evolutionary psychology and evolutionary brain science, I should have spent more time showing…

how ‘man’ conjured up gods, angels, devils and such. ‘Man’ developed the idea of god; god did not develop the idea of man.”

Both these emails point to the same misperception: the failure to appreciate the difference between the objectively real answer to the question “How did everything come into being?” and anything we might try to say about ‘the Creator’, or ‘Ulitimate Reality’, which necessarily will be metaphorical.

The universe is real, not imaginary. We all know this. How is it, then, that in recent centuries and for many believers and nonbelievers alike, God as the Creator of the Universe has become less real than the Universe?

What I mean by “real” is precisely as a dictionary would define it—that is, “existing or occurring as fact; actual rather than imaginary, ideal, or fictitious.” Here is another definition of real, drawn from the same webpage (dictionary.com): “being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary.” Thus my question: Is God today less real than the Universe?

As I mentioned above, there is a radical and vital difference between objectively real answers to big-picture questions and anything we might subjectively say about how these issues impinge upon our lives—that is, how we interpret the meaning(s) of factual discoveries. Big-picture questions that seek factual and interpretive understandings would include: ‘How did we get here?’ ‘How were we made?’ ‘Who is my brother, my sister, my neighbor?’ ‘Tell me about my ancestors?’ ‘Why is there death?’ ‘What can I trust?’ ‘What should I care about?’ ‘Where do I find hope and guidance?’

Below are 18 ways to begin thinking through this core distinction between what is objectively true and subjectively meaningful—applied to the questions and perspectives through which we make meaning of the world and find purpose, value, guidance, comfort, trust, and a satisfying sense of place and mission.

1. PERCEIVING REALITY

• A.  Reality for human beings is always experienced via a blend of objective and subjective factors.
• B.  Reality operates on far smaller, larger, and more complex scales than unaided human perception can possibly discern.
• C.  Because of our brains, we inevitably use stories to answer life’s biggest questions in subjectively meaningful ways.
• D.  Until telescopes, microscopes, and computers, it was impossible to have objectively true answers to such questions.
• E.  It is as natural as breathing to relationalize (even personalize) various aspects of nature, and indeed Reality as a whole.
• F.  Mistaking the map for the territory, the menu for the meal, seems to be a human universal.

2. NESTED EMERGENCE

• As those who have read my book, attended one of my programs, or watched one of my DVDs know, I like the analogy of Russian nesting dolls. From a ‘nested emergent’ perspective, God is a sacred proper name for Ultimate Reality—a mythic personification of the largest Creative Whole. God is the one and only Reality not part of some larger, more comprehensive wholeness—that which transcends and includes everything else. Objectively, that there is such a thing as ‘Ultimate Reality’ or ‘Supreme Wholeness’ is undeniable. Subjectively, anything we might say about the nature of Ultimacy and its meanings will be metaphorical. Different individuals will find such metaphorical expressions as inspiring or not inspiring, helpful or not helpful, comforting or not comforting, alluring or not alluring.

3. DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE? (Excerpt from Thank God for Evolution, pp. 118-19)

Do you believe in life? What an absurd question! It doesn’t matter whether we ‘believe in’ life. Life is all around us, and in us. We’re part of it. Life is, period. What anyone says about life, however, is another story, and may invite belief or disbelief. If I say, “Life is wonderful,” or “Life is brutal,” or “Life is unimportant—it’s what happens after death that really matters,” you may or may not believe me, depending on your own experience and worldview. What we say about life—its nature, its purpose, its meaning—along with the metaphors we choose to describe it—is wide open for discussion and debate. But the reality of life is indisputable. This is exactly the way that God is understood by many who hold the perspective of the Great Story—that is, when human, Earth, and cosmic history are woven into a holy narrative. Our common creation story offers a refreshingly intimate, scientifically compelling, and theologically inspiring vision of God that can provide common ground for both skeptics and religious believers. For peoples alive today, any understanding of ‘God’ that does not at least mean ‘Ultimate Reality’ or ‘the Wholeness of Reality’ (measurable and nonmeasurable) is, I suggest, a trivialized, inadequate notion of the divine. Thus, the emergence of the Great Story—a sacred narrative that embraces yet transcends all scientific, religious, and cultural stories—will come to be cherished, I believe, first and foremost for enriching the depth and breadth of our experience of God.

4. SUPERNATIURAL BELIEFS AS PRE-NATURAL EXPLANATIONS

• What is the nature of so-called ’supernatural’ beliefs? Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary neuroscience suggest that human beings will inevitably and freely use dream-like (supposedly ’supernatural’) language in the process of personifying or relationalizing natural forces and dynamics. How was the world made? Why do earthquakes, tornados, and other bad things happen? Why must we die? Why do we struggle with inner feelings and impulses that tempt us to act in ways detrimental to ourselves and our loved ones? And why have other cultures answered these same questions in different ways? These and other big questions cannot be answered by the powers of human perception alone. Yet answer them we must. Thus, long before modern science could be recruited to the task, ancient cultures gave useful and inspiring answers—answers that now compel literalistic forms of religions to engage in endless battles with the scientific worldview. The way forward is to recognize that prior to advances in technology and scientific ways of testing truth claims, factual answers were simply unavailable. It wasn’t just difficult to have a natural, factual understanding of infection before microscopes brought bacteria into focus; it was impossible. Similarly, it was impossible to understand the large-scale structure of the Universe before telescopes allowed us to see galaxies. Thus, traditional answers to life’s biggest questions are not really supernatural; they are pre-natural.

5. TRIVIAL NOTIONS OF GOD

• From an evolutionary perspective, any ‘God’ that can be believed in or not, is a trivial concept of the divine. God is that all embracing, all transcending Wholeness of Reality, which is of supreme value and essentially ineffable. That’s why there are innumerable names for, and characterizations of, God. The Whole of Reality (God/the Universe) created human beings. Human beings, in turn, create ideas, images, and metaphorical understandings of Ultimate Reality.

6. DARWIN’S GREAT GIFT

• Darwin’s great gift is to us is a real God. Darwin lifted the veil and gave us our first glimpse of just how God/Reality created us over these billions of years—really, not just mythically.

7. GOD AS THE LARGEST NESTED REALITY—TRANSCENDING YET INCLUDING ‘THE UNIVERSE’

• Occasionally someone will ask me, often in a concerned tone, “Are you equating God with the Universe? God is more than the universe!” My typical response to to remind them that our best scientists now tell us that 96% of what we call ‘the Universe’ is dark matter and dark energy, and we’re practically clueless as to what exactly dark matter and dark energy are. Thus, to say that God is more than the universe may be true. But it’s also true to say: “The universe is more than the universe! We have no idea what the universe is.” Many people today look up and around them and think ‘the Universe’. Many people two thousand years ago looked up and around them, and thought ‘God’ or ‘Lord’. ‘God’ and ‘the Universe’ are terms used by human beings to point to that Ultimate Reality beyond the ability of symbolic language to fully capture. But that doesn’t mean they are the same. Whatever we mean by God must, it seems to me, include the Universe. But what we mean by the Universe may or may not include what religous people mean when they use the word God. That’s why I like the anology of nesting dolls so much. God is a legitimate proper name for the largest Whole, which includes and transcends the Universe.

8. GOD IS STILL REVEALING

• The great tragedy of clinging to merely mythic-literal views of God is that we are thereby prevented from seeing all that God is still revealing today through the entire range of sciences. These ongoing ‘public revelations‘ (of God/the Universe) are include insights and practical applications that peoples today are now ready to grasp—indeed, which modern societies need to grasp for our own benefit and to ensure a healthy future for the generations that will follow.

9. SCRIPTURAL CLAIMS OF GOD’S DIRECTIVES

• Whenever any story, any culture, or any scriptural passage claims “God said this” or “God did that,” what follows is necessarily what some human being or group of human beings felt or thought or wished or wanted God to say or do. These claims are never objective, measurable fact; they are subjectively meaningful interpretations. In other words, had CNN been available to record the moment of divine revelation, there would have been nothing out of the ordinary (nothing miraculous) to show on the nightly news—nothing other than what was coming out of someone’s mouth, or pen, or whatever folks wrote with back then. If we don’t understand this, we mock God and will surely miss what God is revealing today.

10. BEYOND BELIEF

• Philip K. Dick wrote in 1978, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” It is this undeniable Reality that I am pointing to when I use the word God.

11. TO TRAGICALLY BLIND OURSELVES

• To interpret the Bible literally is to tragically blind ourselves from seeing what God is doing today. The only place that gods speak, angels bless, demons tempt, snakes talk, suns stop, virgins get pregnant, and people zoom off to heaven is in legends and myths born in older, pre-scientific eras.

12. BELITTLING GOD / BELITTLING SCIENCE

• If we think of ‘God’s word’ as being revealed in ancient texts but not present discoveries, we belittle God. If we think of science as revealing secular facts but not divine truths, we belittle science.

13. MORAL GUIDANCE

• Only the marriage of science and religion provide the real moral guidance to live in deep integrity. And integrity is everything. It’s now the only thing that matters.

14. JESUS AS ‘THE WAY’

• There is only one way out of the current confluence of crises facing humanity, and that is for individuals and institutions to align with the wellbeing of the whole—that is, to live in evolutionary integrity. If you want to get religious about it, this is surely what Jesus meant when he said, ‘I am the way.’ He was inviting us to live the way he lived, in integrity, which includes loving our enemies, feeding the hungry, and being one with ‘the Father’ (or with ‘the Universe’, if you prefer).

15. DISTINGUISHING MEANINGFUL METAPHOR FROM MEASURABLE REALITY

• Few things diminish ‘the gospel’ more than the fact that millions of Christians have not yet been encouraged to distinguish meaningful metaphor from measurable reality.

16. BELIEFS VS. KNOWLEDGE

• Perhaps the single greatest gift of an evolutionary worldview is that we can now know what formerly could only be believed. Before, in order to acquire deep trust (when thinking about the future) or deep gratitude (when thinking about the past) or deep inspiration (in the present), one needed to believe one or another fantastic story. Today, these basic needs can be obtained through knowledge. Beliefs in unnatural (’supernatural’) events are unnecessary, and sometimes even a hinderance.

17. FOCUSING ON THE BENEFITS

• It is impossible to logically argue someone out of their ‘beliefs’. Only by showing how a reality-based worldview can provide the same benefits (trust, gratitude, inspiration, comfort, etc) will someone be willing to consider that the attractiveness of pre-natural beliefs can also be obtained through the scientific worldview. Literal beliefs thus can evolve into metaphorical understandings without losing their power and appeal.

18. GOD AND MYSTERY  (excerpt from Thank God for Evolution, p. 107)

God is the Mystery at the Center of our amazement that the Universe is here at all, that it is what it is, and that it is always becoming, yet always somehow whole.

God is the Mystery at the Heart of consciousness, conscience, compassion, and all the other forms of co-creative, co-incarnational responsiveness of life to life.

God is the Mysterious Omni-Creative Power through which the Universe is and ever becomes more intricately and wondrously fulfilled through the interactions of all its parts (each of which contains a spark of the Whole).

The supernatural terrorist fallacy is the false belief that writings thousands of years old reveal God’s unchanging character.  As the new atheists are all too happy to point out, if this is true then God must be considered the ultimate terrorist.  As Michael Earl painfully details in his “Bible Stories Your Parents Never Taught You” and “The Ultimate Terrorist” audio programs, in passage after passage in the Hebrew scriptures, in the early Christian scriptures, and in the Qur’an, God is said to employ the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or intimate…, which is how the U.S. Department of Defense defines terrorism.  We all know this is not true, of course.  God is NOT a cosmic terrorist.  But because many passages in scripture clearly portray God in just such an unflattering light, I predict that the rising tide of atheism will continue unabated so long as we religious folk trivialize God by interpreting our religious texts literally.

When we read about “supernatural” utterances or acts in the Bible, we should always remember to apply the evening news test.

THE EVENING NEWS TEST

Whenever any story, any culture, or any scriptural passage claims “God said this” or “God did that,” what follows is necessarily what some person or group of people felt or thought or wished or wanted God to say or do, often as justification after the fact.  These subjectively meaningful claims are never objective, measurable fact.  In other words, had CNN been there to record the moment of revelation, there would have been nothing out of the ordinary (nothing miraculous) to show on the evening news—nothing other than what was coming out of someone’s mouth, or pen, or whatever folks wrote with back then.  If we fail to understand this, we belittle God and will surely miss what God is revealing and doing today.  And we mock God if we argue that He communicated more clearly to goat hearders and fisherman in the distant past, through dreams and intuitions, than He does today through measurable, cumulative evidence.

IS THIS REALLY THE GOSPEL—GOD’S ‘GREAT NEWS’ FOR ALL OF HUMANITY?

What underlies the supernatural terrorist fallacy is the failure to recognize that the so-called supernatural language in scripture is actually pre-natural (before we could have possibly had a natural, factual understanding) and unnatural (in the same way that what we do in our dreams, if interpreted literally, is unnatural).

Think about it . . . An unnatural father who occasionally engages in unnatural acts (supernatural interventions) sent his unnatural son to the world in an unnatural way, offering an unnatural salvation from an unnatural curse brought about by an unnatural snake.  Those who believe in all this unnatural activity get to enjoy an unnatural heaven and everyone else will suffer an unnatural hell, forever.

Is it any wonder that young people are leaving religion by the millions, if this is the “good news” they are offered?

Is it any wonder that the new atheists continue to ride bestseller lists if religion is equated with such “supernaturalism”?

As religious people the world over know in their hearts, God and the gospel are infinitely more REAL than the above absurd characterization.  But without a sacred deep time worldview we’ll lack the eyes to see and ears to hear how glorious the gospel actually is—that is, in a this-world realistic way.  And, of course, we’ll continue to be publicly (and rightfully!) mocked by the new atheists.

NOTE: Chapters 5-7 in my book, Thank God for Evolution outline an way of thinking about the divine that is undeniably real. In Chapter 18 (the last chapter) I quote several new atheists at length who show the limitations of traditional ways of viewing scripture.  I also show how God’s word, God’s will, and God’s guidance are REALized by a meaningful evolutionary worldview.  I also recommend seeing the following: Metaphorical gods vs. Reality/God: Part 1 and Part 2.

(The above is cross-posted on Rev. Matt Tittle’s Houston Chronicle “Keep the Faith” blog, where it is generating a lively and insightful discussion. Join in!)

Responses from Religious Leaders and Congregants
Best Evolution Resources
Big History: The Teaching Company
Even Rocks Evolve!
Creationist Confusion / Evolution as Meaningful, Inspiring Fact
The Unnaturalist Fallacy
Teach Both Sides of What Controversy?
Why I thank God for Charles Darwin
Intelligent Design
Evolutionary Morality and Ethics
Evolution Theology: Religion 2.0
Thank God for the New Atheists and Young Earth Creationists
EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY
The Great Blasphemy?
LITANY: It Matters What We Think About Evolution!
Beyond Evidence: Responding to Creationists
Science Leaders Praise Thank God for Evolution

1. How factual knowledge gained through the full range of evolutionary sciences can legitimately and easily be interpreted as religiously inspiring—and why, at this time in history, it is so urgent and fruitful to do so;

2. How the arrow of cosmic complexity upon which the vast majority of the world’s scientists agree can be viewed in spiritually nourishing and deeply empowering ways (teleologically or non-teleologically); and

3. Why it is wildly erroneous to believe that ancient mythic texts, an unnatural judge, or otherworldly carrots and sticks are necessary (or even helpful) for superior moral development and healthy societies.

“MUST READ” WEB PAGES RE THE CREATIONISM VS. EVOLUTION CONFLICT…
Evidence of evolution - wikipedia
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution - article by Douglas Theobald
Evolution as theory and fact - wikipedia
Objections to evolution - wikipedia
Creation-evolution controversy - wikipedia
History of creation-evolution controversy - wikipedia
History of evolutionary thought - wikipedia
The Great Story - wikipedia
History of the Universe - wikipedia
Earth history - wikipedia
Geological history - wikipedia
Biological history - wikipedia
Human history - wikipedia
Evolutionary origin of religions - wikipedia
Dating methods -wikipedia
Evolution Education wiki

ACCLAIMED BOOKS REVEALING COMPELLING EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION
Science, Evolution, and Creationism: National Academy of Sciences
Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction: Eugenie C. Scott
The Counter Creationism Handbook: Mark Isaak
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters: Donald R. Prothero
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Forensic Record of Evolution: Sean B. Carroll
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors: Nicholas Wade
Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul: Kenneth R. Miller
Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design: Michael Shermer

FINDING MEANING AND INSPIRATION IN AN EVOLUTIONARY WORLDVIEW
The View from the Center of the Universe: Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams
Green Space Green Time: The Way of Science: Connie Barlow
The Sacred Depths of Nature: Ursula Goodenough
God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution: John F. Haught
The Universe Story: Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry
The Dream of the Earth, The Great Work, and Evening Thoughts: Thomas Berry
Nature’s Magic and Holistic Darwinism: Peter Corning
Evolution for Everyone: David Sloan Wilson
The Symbiotic Man: A New Understanding of Life and a Vision of the Future: Joel de Rosnay
Out of Control: The Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World: Kevin Kelly
A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Science and Spirituality: Ken Wilber
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: Steve McIntosh
Humanity: The Chimpanzees Who Would Be Ants: Russell Genet
Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future: Duane Elgin
Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World: Michael Dowd

EVOLUTIONARY EMERGENCE / LIFE’S TRAJECTORY / COMPLEXITY’S ARROW
Evolutionary Perspective - webpage
Introduction to Evolutionary Spirituality - webpage
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History: David Christian
Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and Rise of Humanity - course by David Christian
Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos: Eric Chaisson
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny: Robert Wright
Evolution’s Arrow: The Direction of Evolution and The Future of Humanity: John Stewart
The Evolutionary Manifesto - essay by John Stewart
Evolution Extended: Biological Debates on the Meaning of Life: Connie Barlow
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software: Steven Johnson
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology: Ray Kurzweil
The Law of Accelerating Returns - essay by Ray Kurzweil
Radical Evolution: Joel Garreau

THE NATURAL/DIVINE EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS OF MORALITY AND ETHICS
Evolution of Morality - wikipedia
Evolutionary Ethics - wikipedia
Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are: Frans de Waal
Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved: Frans de Waal
Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct: Michael McCollough
The Science of Good and Evil: Michael Shermer
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation: Matt Ridley
The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: Evolutionary Psychology: Robert Wright
The Evolution of Morality: Richard Joyce
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom: Jonathan Haidt
The Female Brain: Louann Brizendine
Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life: Steven Johnson
A General Theory of Love: Thomas Lewis, et al.
Comparison of Societal Health in Religious and Non-religious Democracies - article: Journal of Religion and Society
Bible Stories Your Parents Never Taught You (OT and NT) - free audio programs by Mike Earl