When we show up at the hospital as a mother in labor or, perhaps as the prospective father, we are probably both anxious and hopeful. We are anxious because this is not a kind process. It can be lengthy and quite painful. As well, sometimes the end result brings us something we’re not really prepared for. We are hopeful because we wait in wonder to see that what began as two single cell organisms is now about to emerge as a fully formed human being. A human being that could only come from those single cells, each of which was provided by a different person.

The science is pretty clear. There’s a lot of stuff about chromosomes and cell division and differentiated cells that come from single cells, of DNA and genetic codes, about how the different organs in this new human function and emerge in coordinated fashion so this baby can breathe, see, hear, feel, taste, smell and even think. We know that the amount of information contained in those cells, in those genes, comprised of coded patterns of amino acids that create proteins that are carbon-based and allow the whole system to function is astronomical and far beyond the ability of the most powerful supercomputers. And, we know that this information system is specifically designed (by intention or not) to do what it does.

But, what we actually see in what inevitably emerges, is a beautiful sight. A baby human that can fill our hearts with joy. We witness the beauty of the first suckling at the mother’s breast and the way she looks at that which she faithfully carried for nine months inside of her. We see the miniature hands and feet with tiny little fingers and toes and, perhaps, we can even faintly see a little heartbeat underneath the baby’s chest. We marvel. Most of us love. We experience joy, beauty, marvel, and love.

Are these four things real? Or are they illusory? Are we just combinations of particles that happen to coalesce together without outside purpose or are we somehow both valuable and a product of something dependent on outside purpose?

Is this all there is or is there something else? Are beauty and love real things or just adaptive constructs that are merely chemical and serve to perpetuate the species?

The two worldviews we’ve been looking at compete for our attention. I’ll jump to the conclusion and just come out and say it. The one ends in darkness and the other ends in light. The one ends in emptiness and the other in fulfillment. The one ends in the dust of ruined worlds and the other ends in eternal life.

I did not arrive at that conclusion quickly or lightly as many of you know. I arrived at that conclusion when I was finally left with no other answer that made sense, given the evidence.

But, that’s me.

What about you?

Of course, there’s always an escape clause. It can be some variation of “the answer just can’t be known.” Or, “I’m good with just trying to figure out how to get by day to day. This philosophy stuff isn’t who I am.” Or, “I guess we’ll find out soon enough!”

Honestly, I understand all of that and maybe this is just much ado about nothing when you get down to it. It is what it is.

On the other hand, don’t we all, deep down inside, want to make sense of things? I mean big things like why is there so much suffering? Is it ok to say that someone really is evil? Does God really exist?

Maybe you already feel like you’ve arrived at the answer. Maybe you haven’t. Or, maybe you’re somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t matter. We’re all in the same boat.

So, let’s say we’re new to philosophy and a thing like worldviews or frameworks for making sense of things. But, we’re at least a bit interested, while also not a little intimidated with the thought of diving in. What should we do?

Well, think of a jigsaw puzzle. And, we don’t have to start with one of those really big ones that are basically a representation of abstract art, that fill a large table with tiny pieces and would drive most of us around the bend. We can start with a much smaller one. It’ll fit on a card table and the pieces are rather large.

Each piece of the jigsaw is a piece of evidence. A clue (which is really all a jigsaw piece really is). That’s it. Evidence.

Simply put, evidence is a thing that serves as a kind of fact, especially if it’s solid evidence.

Let’s say you hear a gun shot and the very next second you come around the corner and see a man with a gun that has smoke coming out the barrel, standing over a very still person lying on the ground with a pool of blood seeping out from underneath. That’s evidence. Is it proof that the man with the gun actually caused the blood coming out of the other man? Well, not exactly, but it’s certainly far more probable than not that the evidence points to a fact that the cause of the blood seepage lies in the device that man is holding. Solid evidence.

The observation clearly points to a conclusion that is highly probable if not perfectly provable. One piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

There is this grossly mistaken belief (we can call it a fallacy) that faith and reason are in opposition, when in fact, they can be extremely closely related. But, let’s continue.

The method by which we ultimately resolve our fundamental question is by gathering as much evidence as we can and then put the pieces together to see what kind of picture unfolds.

If this seems like a great deal of work, it may turn out that way for some people. Perhaps not for others. But, it’s not a contest of who gets there first. It’s merely a question of how much do I care about this?

Does it matter if there really is a Designer or not? Does it matter if all animate and inanimate things are basically the same thing, on the one hand just chemicals and particles connected via physical properties and on the other hand, perhaps, somehow connected by a “spiritual” force that runs equally through all things? In reality, it does matter to a lot of people who make decisions on how to live their lives (and influence other people) accordingly.

I try not to be critical of the things people believe unless I find them to be abhorrent, which does happen at times. I watch as new variations on old themes rise up to capture the public imagination as if they were original and many people ooh and ahh, as if now it all makes sense. One such variation blew into the scene some ten or more years ago and offered a conclusive answer to life’s big questions. Millions of copies of the book were sold (you see, people want to know the answers) and I believe even Oprah weighed in with something to the effect that this was the real deal.

It was called The Secret. Talk about a catchy belief system! As in, in the entire history of human thought and belief, just now it is discovered that there really is a design to it all and it’s been hidden forever but now it’s known. Fundamentally, it’s just the most recent version of the Genie in the Bottle system but the genie is actually just an inanimate Universe that somehow will give each of us what we want if we really want it. It certainly wasn’t revolutionary. In fact, it had its roots on a thing called The Power of Positive Thinking.

(There’s a similar and so-called Christian splinter group that goes by the adage: “Name it and claim it.”)

Now I find nothing wrong with believing in the power of positive thinking. After all, being a “glass half full” person is probably better than being a “glass half empty” person. (For the record, I am neither. If asked where I line up on this, I answer, “I’m a realist who hopes.”)

I raise this recent attempt to help us better understand how we think and behave, and what’s behind it all, for two reasons. The first is as evidence that people really want to know what’s going on and are hungry for answers. The second is that, when something like this comes up, it need fall into one of our two prevailing worldviews. Can it be explained by Scientific Materialism? (If you read how scientists looked at this popular phenomenon of The Secret, they universally claimed there is no scientific evidence to substantiate it.) Or, can it be explained by a Supernatural reality which, honestly, just begs the question of what is behind that reality. (In a Christian framework, this is often cited as coming from Matthew 7:7, when Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” However, this is spoken in terms of seeking God, not stuff.)

I’m using recent and popular example because it doesn’t allow us to escape from the central question of what lies behind the curtain. If there is no evidence of a natural and scientific explanation, where is the evidence of the supernatural? For instance, who or what designed the system? And, how does this philosophy (worldview) account for all of the millions of people who try really hard but don’t get what they want? No one talks about The Secret anymore but the point remains: People seek answers.

We began this lengthy series by seeking an understanding of why we think and behave in certain ways. Then, we followed a trail that took us progressively deeper, beginning with guiding principles that, themselves, are founded upon a layer of fundamental values that, themselves, are founded upon a layer of a thing we can call truth. We then sought to look at truth as either subjective or objective and we spoke in terms of two overarching worldviews that seek to explain this: Scientific Materialism and (to put it loosely) Supernatural Design.

I have intended this to be a kind of summary and, because of that, it is quite general and deserves much greater specificity and clarification if anyone is interested. In fact, I think I’ll want to continue with some of these threads in another series for anyone who has the stomach for this kind of thing.

Yes, it’s a jigsaw puzzle. Either consciously or subconsciously, we’re all trying to make sense of things. Who are we really, as human beings? How are we supposed to make sense of things that puzzle or intrigue us? Things like justice or freedom or equality or beauty or love or morality? Is there a thing we can call “purpose” to our existence as a species and to us, particularly? We know that we will die and, if what the scientists all tell us, eventually the earth will fry from a dying sun and, far, far in the future, the universe will run out of gas and be a cold and dark place, unable to sustain life in any form. What does that say about our place in it right now? Are we “merely” a conglomeration of subatomic particles acting upon physical forces, combining to form chemical compounds? Or are we more than the sum of those parts? We, consequently, seek evidence from experience and the wisdom of others. In the end, there are all sorts of ways we can examine the individual pieces that lie on that table so that we can fit them together. When the curtain is pulled away, what will that picture show us?

We left off pursuing the question: What lies behind the curtain?

So, let’s briefly review and summarize what we’re talking about because this has been kind of technical and, possibly, in areas that aren’t particularly familiar to some who are reading this. (I don’t mean to be at all dismissive! I’m just guessing that most people don’t spend much energy diving into physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy and theology.) 🙂

We’re asking the question because we’re curious about why we think and believe certain things. We’re curious about who we are and why we’re here. We’re curious about our value as individuals, the value of other individuals and about society in general. We’re curious about why we consider some things moral and other things immoral or why we consider some things just and other things unjust. Or, maybe we haven’t been particularly curious about some of these things but it piques our interest to think about what makes me, “me.”

And, remember, to risk being simplistic for the purpose of making a point without resorting to some thick academic text: (1) Our thoughts and behaviors are framed through the application of certain (2) Guiding Principles, which are like programs or outlines that translate our (3) Fundamental Values into action. Therefor (logically), we look to our fundamental values where we can accept them as either having a source or not.

If we want to go further or, I should say, deeper, we are faced with two possible ultimate sources for our fundamental values. (1) They are socially constructed. That is to mean, there is no outside “objective” source. Instead, our fundamental values are purely the product of societal norms and dependent upon the ebb and flow of what is important to human society in the place and time we’re examining. More on that in a bit. Or (2) They are the product of some kind of supernatural (non human) vision which contains both previously determined purpose and desired outcomes. In other words, our fundamental values which seek to answer who we are and why we think and behave in certain ways, are either subjective or objective.

I’ll repeat that, the fundamental values that ultimately determine what and how we think and behave and give meaning to who and what we are, are either subjective or objective. Another way of saying “subjective” is relative, meaning dependent upon circumstances, feelings, and experiences without any underlying or external truth.

These are the only two categories.

One common response (whether knowingly or not) when coming to this Y in the road is to throw up one’s metaphorical hands and say, “We just don’t know. And, this is very frustrating and I don’t have the time or inclination to think about it!” Which of course is completely understandable.

Having said that, it’s a fact that, by default, we fall into one of the two categories or worldviews, whether we want to or not. 🙂 And, the implications are fascinating.

Worldview #1: Scientific Materialism. Our reality is a function of random (ultimately non-rational) sources and our values are relative in that they are socially constructed around certain purposes that we, as humans, create to serve our own needs.

Worldview #2: Intelligent Design. Our reality is a function of a rational external source wherein fundamental values are ultimately objective and not dependent upon time, circumstance, or what we think is best to serve our individual or collective needs.

With this in mind, our fourth category (joining thoughts/behaviors, guiding principles, and fundamental values) and the one that lies behind/underneath our fundamental values is Truth. This is the thing we are all longing for. That which is ultimately true. It’s what gives form and substance to everything else. This is the diamond in the rough. This is what exists when all else is peeled away.

What will I find behind the curtain: Subjective Truth or Objective Truth?

Any heads spinning right now? Join the club. Mine spins all of the time!

To get right down to the brass tacks …

Whether you are an atheist, agnostic, pantheist, polytheist, monotheist, naturist or spiritualist, it all comes down to which of these two worldviews you subscribe to.

And the upshot is not to lose heart! We can approach an investigation into this quite simply, although the results will be profound!

All we have to do is ask why we value something.

Ok, it’s actually a little bit tougher than that because it’s really no good to answer something to the effect of “Well, that’s just what I believe.” (That’s called begging the question which is just a kinder way of saying avoiding the question.)

“Why am I concerned about civil rights for ethnic minorities?” “Well, because I believe in justice.” Ok, then, why do you believe in justice? (Pause). “Well, I believe in justice because it’s important that we treat people fairly and equally.”

Ok, then, why should we treat people fairly and equally? “Well, because society functions better when everyone is treated fairly and equally.”

Ok, then, what if there are societies that don’t believe in fairness and equality?

(Two possible answers …)

One, “Well, that’s up to them but I believe fairness and equality are best for us.”

Two, “Well, they’re wrong, fairness and equality aren’t dependent upon what people think is good for them. They’re just right, regardless.”

In other words, justice is either a good thing because I think it is or it’s a good thing because it’s the product of external design. Justice is either subjective (relative) or objective and non dependent upon human constructs.

So, what is the source of justice?

Is the practice of human sacrifice by throwing babies into flames objectively wrong (where does that objectivity come from?) or can it be right for some societies while wrong for others?

Is an incident of a person walking into a house, not his own, and randomly skewering a person he’s never seen, just because it pleases him, objectively wrong or are there explanations that could make that perfectly acceptable?

At the very foundation of our sense of reality, of our own meaning, of our moral code, of the makeup of the material world, is there purpose and design or is it without ultimate meaning?

Do we have value in and of itself or, as humans, is our only value dependent upon the perspectives and inclinations of others or, better yet, merely as a means of consuming fuel, replicating the species and transforming our bodies into fuel for other life forms?

The answer to these questions, the questions to which we are led by our search for what’s what, are really just variations of one central question. Is there supernatural reality or not?

Which makes more sense to us, Scientific Materialism or Intelligent Design?

How do we answer that question? And once we feel we’re tending towards one rather than the other, what are the implications?

Well, the implications are that the journey is just beginning.

I was at the gym a little while ago, peddling away at a pretty good clip on my recumbent bike, listening to music that helps me keep pace, doing my best to ignore the TVs with their constant stream of news. I’m not against news, mind you. I just haven’t been able to take the TV version for many years now. But, I digress.

I’ve grown somewhat used to finding my mind wandering while the body does its thing and today was no exception.

Have you ever found yourself in a place that seems tailormade for you? Where you don’t have to make an effort to get something done? Instead, you seem like you’re merely along for the ride?

Well, I do on occasion and the last four or five days have been like that.

I’m talking about my writing and the thoughts behind it.

The oddest thing: I think I started back to write maybe five days ago, including today. I’ve posted one piece each day since then, although I’ve written about twelve. Just this morning, I wrote three before this one and have others chomping at the bit. This, after quite a lengthy period of relative silence.

In fact (and I’m really not embellishing here), I can’t keep up with where this is coming from and I’m a really fast typist. It’s a little like stepping into a kayak, pushing away from the bank because the water beckons and, before you know it, you’re miles down the river in a current with no signs of letting up. In fact, I’m having to apply the brakes just to keep some balance.

I have no idea of how many or few people actually read this stuff but I don’t really think all that much about it. The ideas and words just form themselves virtually without consciously thinking and the fingers dance across the keyboard accordingly.

I do not mention this as any kind of boast. Really.

Instead, as I was peddling away, I was reflecting on this zone I’m currently in as an expression of a spiritual gift.

Interestingly, I touched upon this concept in an hour-long talk I gave a week ago Sunday at a local church. It wasn’t the primary subject but it did fit in, tangentially. So, I guess it’s been on my mind and, perhaps, the preparation for that talk helped prime the pump.

I know I’ve written about spiritual gifts before but, since it leapt back into my mind this afternoon (while taking a break from my writing, of all things! Cut me some slack, God!), I thought I’d share a few pertinent thoughts.

Without going into theology in any detail, spiritual gifts are like special skills that we’re granted by God, once we surrender to him. The apostle Paul, giant as he is of the New Testament, names a number of them, as does his compatriot, the apostle Peter, the rock upon which Jesus said he’d build his church.

So, what are these special skills that are actually “gifts” from God, issued for the purpose of partnering with him?

Well, we can start by viewing them in a context that is not spiritual. In that sense, they’d be things that others would recognize we are very good at. Perhaps people have told you that you are very good at fixing things, at being mechanically inclined. Perhaps people say that you are a very good musician or a quite good at your job in sales or marketing or finance. Maybe that you’re a skilled doctor or nurse or athlete or entertainer.

“Spiritual” gifts are like skills that are supernaturally charged and they affect the lives of others in a way that honors God and his plan for us. This is an important equation of sorts. Yes, they are skills … things we are shown to be quite good at. But, that’s not all. They have to have an effect on others in a way that is deeply meaningful. And, not just meaningful but profoundly so. The expression of the gift can point to something either deeply within someone or it can help set their eyes and heart on something deeply beyond that someone.

Here’s another way to determine if one of our skill sets fits the definition. When we are in that space of expressing a given gift by our actions, we have almost no sense of it. It certainly doesn’t seem like effort, although others observing it might describe it as a kind of work. It just seems so natural, like a most common thing such as breathing.

But, remember, in order to fulfill the true definition, it has to be something that advances God’s plan for us, collectively and individually. And, that raises all sorts of questions.

I believe there are such things as spiritual gifts and I believe I’m the beneficiary of some of them. Not a ton, mind you, but at least several. One of Peter’s admonitions is that it is incumbent upon us to employ those gifts. Get them out from underneath the bushel. Let the light shine.

One of my regular prayers is that God use me for his purposes. Let me act as his eyes, his heart, his hands and feet. I fall miserably short most of the time but I don’t think he minds as long as I keep asking and getting up after falling down. I’m grateful for the times when I recognize his handiwork in my actions, as simple as they may be. As simple as sitting down at a laptop and trying to offer even the crudest picture of who he is and why we should care.

Do you know yours?

Thank you, Jesus.

Now, let’s step forward and try to pull away the curtain. What do we find?

Is it really an onion, which only consists of layers, all the way down until you reach nothing?

Or, is it like the element of carbon that is brittle (such as coal) and resides in the upper layers of our earth’s strata but, when you dig in certain places you find the same basic carbon element in its highly compressed form and you realize you’ve found a diamond, the hardest of all minerals. You can’t scratch it. It’s the lowest common denominator.

It needs to be said that all of us have our biases and those biases act as a kind of filter or control mechanism by which we examine the things that are important to us. I’ll be the first to raise my hand and admit that I’m biased.

(Before I get charged with being close-minded, to be biased doesn’t at all mean being closed-minded. Bias is not synonymous with prejudice. Not at all. In fact, bias is the normal and reasonable result of thinking about things rationally and arriving at a conclusion. Prejudice is to “pre-judge” a thing before encountering appropriate evidence.)

For instance, I have a well-developed bias against people who chronically bully others because I think bullying is against one of my principles (respect of others) that comes from a fundamental value (all people are inherently of tremendous value) and another fundamental value (freedom of the individual). Prejudice is judging a class of people unworthy without taking any time to actually understand the individuals in that class. Etc…

I mention this because, after many decades of thinking about this problem of what lies behind the curtain, I’ve reached a conclusion based upon the evidence that I’ve been able to cull from hundreds of sources … across the full spectrum of beliefs, including both scientific and philosophical.

And, I can find no way to further reduce the two prevailing possible worldviews to lower common denominators than the ones I’ll be addressing. (Cautionary note: There are multiple ways of interpreting each of these two worldviews but the fact is, they still fall into one or the other of the two general categories.)

Recall that worldviews are ways of organizing our values and principles, therefor our thoughts and behaviors.

For any of you who have been with me for a time, this will come as no surprise.

Worldview #1

All that exists can be explained through the interaction of physical elements and forces.

In essence, everything is purely a combination of matter and energy, from the smallest known sub atomic particles like quarks and gluons to the vast universe of galaxies and stars. In this worldview, the thing we call life is a product of accidental combinations of chemical and physical processes that formed a third that we can call biology, ( which is the study of “living” organisms).

To continue with this worldview, all life exists as a product of what we we’ve been calling for the last 150 years Natural Selection, which is the survival of the fittest (passing along successful natural characteristics and abandoning unsuccessful ones) and Random Mutations (the accidental small changes that occur in otherwise healthy genetic codes). These two forces are said to account for all of the changes that occurred (the arrival of complex organisms and incredibly diverse species) once the inorganic chemical compounds (not alive) suddenly became organic (alive).

For some as yet determined reason, after about ten billion years of our universe’s existence, a chance radical change occurred on earth and life began. In a sense, this was a cosmic accident. From the moment of the Singularity to who we are alive today with all of our values, principles, thoughts and behaviors, it’s “just” a combination of physics, chemistry, biology and random chance.

As the famous and popular astronomer Carl Sagan put it: “The cosmos is all that is, ever was and ever will be.”

Another very popular scientist, the atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins says, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed by a purpose.” In other words, Dawkins says and believes that while the science looks like it has design and purpose behind it, in fact it doesn’t.

Ramifications of this include the belief (by both some evolutionary biologists and the philosophers who agree with them) that, in fact, there is no such thing as human free will … we are, as humans, merely (as one critic puts it) “meat with no purpose.”

This worldview can be described with many titles. One of the most common in scientific and philosophical circles is Scientific Materialism. Another is just Naturalism, or even Metaphysical Naturalism. In the history of modern philosophy, the closest schools are Nihilism and Existentialism. Presuming you have any interest in diving more deeply, these are decent places to start.

The bottom line is “what we see and empirically prove is what we get.”Everything that exists need fall within the framework of physics (the study of matter and energy), chemistry (the study of the substances that matter forms) and biology (the study of living things). That perspective then creates a “worldview” which is just another way of saying “philosophy,” which is the way we determine how to make sense of this stuff and apply it in reality.

In summary: Scientific Materialism is an all-encompassing worldview (a philosophy or overarching belief system) that says that we are “just” the sum of the gazillions of particles (from exploding stars) and that there is actually no objective meaning to who we are apart from that fact. We are not greater than that sum. There is nothing outside of physics, chemistry and biology that can define us and, as a consequence, define our fundamental value apart from that.

In contrast, there is

Worldview #2

In this framework, we are, in all actuality, greater than the sum of our physical properties as defined through physics, chemistry and biology. In essence, there is a supernatural quality to our existence. Super, here, means above, beyond or greater. I guess it can also mean outside.

One of the fundamental beliefs in this worldview is that there was a “cause” to the Singularity and that cause was outside of time and space, distinct from the realm of pure matter and energy, the stuff which eventually formed chemical properties and allows for the thing we can call life.

(The problem for both worldviews is that no one has been able to pull away the curtain behind the Singularity in order to “prove” how and why it happened. Both sides claim piles of evidence to support their conclusions which, because they can’t be empirically “proven,” must rely upon conjecture or probabilities, which is maybe a little like a thing we can call “Faith.”)

In this second worldview, the evidence actually points to things beyond scientific materialism. There is meaning and purpose outside of the purely natural. For instance, love is not just a product of miniscule neurons composed of particles and energy “firing” a certain way in order to give an illusion of meaning beyond helping us perpetuate and adapt the species.

This second worldview rests on the belief that there is a causal agent behind the curtain and that a fundamental characteristic of this causal agent is that it is rational. It is not random that 2+2=4. The equation works because the nature of numbers (which don’t actually exist but are the product of our thoughts!) makes it so.

In this line of thinking, something can never come from nothing.

I’ll say it again, in this line of thinking (worldview) something can never come from nothing.

There are all sorts of named concepts to define this second worldview but most come down to a framework that says there is actually a rational design to our reality. And, of course, design requires purpose and reason in order to exist. Another way to put this is design is a product of vision followed by related rational action.

Like Worldview #1, it goes by certain names; in this instance some names are Theism (belief in gods or a God, especially a Creator God), Deism (belief in a supreme being and creator who no longer pays any attention to that which was created) and, more recently, Intelligent Design (the belief that there is a creative force or person behind the curtain that has something akin to a Mind.)

Of course, I fall somewhere in this realm for the many reasons I’ve expressed through all of these essays but, for now, I’ll just go with the last one which is “Intelligent Design.”

The face-off, therefor, is between Scientific Materialism and Intelligent Design.

And, what a face-off it is! They are diametrically opposing overarching worldviews that, when we pull away all of the layers behind how and why we think anything or behave in any way, we can explain those thoughts and behaviors.

Pick one, for there are (when you really get down to it) no others. And, what do you find when you pull away the curtain and find either one?

Next time.

To recap: All of us process the things we confront each day, whether they are thoughts, events, behaviors, feelings and so forth, through a set of lenses that organize everything. I’d hazard that most people don’t think about this much, which is normal and not unreasonable. After all, we have enough to process without going through a thing we can call metacognition.

(Metacognition is a fancy word that really means we’re aware of our own thought processes. We kind of stand outside of the thinking and examine it. Just now, as I’m trying to consider an illustration, the image came to me of the stories some people relate of having “died” and becoming disembodied, rising above and looking down at everything going on … doctors running around, people crying, hospital machines shrieking. This gazing at one’s self is kind of like metacognition.)

While we don’t actually live consciously much of our time practicing metacognition, to the degree that we do, we’d discover that the worlds of thoughts and behaviors are really all about a thing we can call cause and effect. In a sense, the effects of actual thoughts and behaviors have real causes. They have roots in things like experience, knowledge and beliefs.

As touched upon previously, we behave as if a kind of computer program spit out how to apply our fundamental values in the form of guiding principles that will govern our behaviors. You input the fundamental values, press the button and, “whir,” out come guiding principles, the way we consciously and even unconsciously make choices about how to live our lives.

Which raises the question, “Where do our fundamental values come from?”

I may be kind of alone here, but this stuff really intrigues me.

Maybe it’s the curiosity of wondering if there is something behind the curtain really pulling the levers. Or, maybe it’s a bit like those little Russian doll sets where, if you open one, you find a smaller one inside, only to open that one to find an even smaller one and so on. Or even a third illustration: All of us learned math in school, whereby we were asked to reduce equations to their lowest common denominator, that place that was no longer divisible. It just stood solidly on its own. So, in our case, we can just ask, “where does it end?”

Given that I think a lot about this because I tend to geekiness in some matters (plus I’ve had significant academic training in the philosophy of knowledge), I’ve arrived at a place I consider the lowest common denominator.

At this, we must turn briefly to the related sciences of physics and a thing called cosmology, which is a term describing the study of the origin of the universe. (I seriously doubt that most people spend much time, if any, thinking about either physics or cosmology and that’s completely understandable! I apologize for this little detour.)

I bring this up because physics is really just applied mathematics, one of the greatest practitioners of all time being Albert Einstein, who famously found himself having to cross over into philosophy to help make sense of the implications of his findings. And, while physics seeks to explain how things fundamentally function in the realm of actual stuff (particles and energy and such), philosophy seeks to explain the fundamental nature of what it actually means … the essence, so to speak, of reality.

So, pure mathematics and pure philosophy are actually far more linked than most people would believe (including the fact that they both are absolutely dependent on logic). And it’s to both that we momentarily need to go to find what lies behind the curtain.

In a sense, it’s really quite similar to ask the question, “What is the true origin of the universe?” while at the same time asking the question, “What is at the root of why I think and behave a certain way?”

If this is new to you, please don’t shy away because it’s actually less complicated than it might seem (at least at the level we’re addressing).

Over the last century or so, really smart physicists have come to the conclusion, supported by overwhelming amounts of evidence, with zero evidence to the contrary, that this universe in which we live (the only one so far as we know), actually began with a thing called the Singularity, a point that was infinitely small (really, zero), yet proved to contain all of the matter and energy that now populates the entire universe. All. All of the hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with up to hundreds of billions of stars. That’s a total number that fries our brains. And, with the fact it all came from virtually nothing even fries our brains more, if we care to think about that.

(If any of you have more than a passing knowledge of this, we can get into the alternative explanations by some physicists of our universe’s origin … namely things like multiverses, string theory and aliens seeding lifeforms hither and yon. But, interestingly, neither of these address the same problem: What began it all?)

I said that there are only two fundamental worldviews and they come from this actual problem, a problem that occupies scientists, philosophers, theologians and all those who want to pull away the curtain to figure out really what’s what.

Here’s the problem: Was this Singularity random and non-rational or was it reasonable? Did the beginning of time and space and, ultimately, all life on earth, occur as a random process or was it the result of some rational thing that we can call a design?

Why is this important and what does it have to do with what guides our thinking and behavior? What truly lies behind the curtain or beneath the surface of our consciousness? What do physics and philosophy, mathematics, theology and psychology all have in common?

Let’s see.

Really, the most vivid memory I have, as a six year old watching The Wizard of Oz for the first time, is of the horror of the flying monkeys. At least that’s what woke me up from that early nightmare. Aside from that, I’m sure I was entranced by the story and ended up reading all of the Oz books as a youngster. While the world of Oz was a very special place for an inquisitive child, I don’t remember spending much time philosophizing about the role of the curtain and the man behind it. I don’t think a kid of eight or so is all that good at inferring from hidden meaning.

So, maybe I’m making up for lost time.

Because, in fact, we’re always trying to look behind the curtain to find out who or what is pulling the levers. And, I don’t just mean scientists or philosophers or psychologists or any other line of professionals whose business it is to peel away at layers to see what’s what.

I mean we all, in our own ways, want to know what’s really going on and why.

All of us want some kind of explanation so we can make sense of our experience. I’m not sure I’ve met anyone who could honestly say, “You know, everything is random. I mean everything. Nothing makes sense and, in all honesty, it shouldn’t. I inhabit a reality with absolutely no meaning to anything. There’s no purpose. I can’t count on a single thing.”

(It might come as a surprise that, actually, this line of thinking is behind some pretty major philosophical movements that still resonate today.)

So, to be overly general, we all seek meaning in order to actually live our lives. We want to know, whether simply or profoundly, what is important and what is not and how we’re supposed to respond. This kind of thinking punctuates our thoughts and behaviors all of the time.

I bring this up because I’m curious about where these thoughts and behaviors come from. What is their source? And, subsequently, why is it important for any of us to know this stuff?

Now, there are all sorts of ways to craft a response. The psychologist will go at it one way and the neurobiologist somewhat differently. The historian and the economist and the sociologist will all weigh in, as will the theologian and philosopher. Does that mean we need to sift through all of their perspectives and studies in order to address the questions I’m raising?

I don’t think so. At least not to a level that will help us look behind the curtain that is a feature of everyday reality.

With that in mind, I’d like to propose a simple formula for trying to answer any question of how or why we think something or behave in a certain way.

All of us value things. And, I’m really not referring here to things as stuff, like houses, cars, jewelry, nice sound systems and so forth. I’m referring to things that tend not to come and go as readily. We value aspects of life, like relationships and the things that make them work well. We value traits like honesty and courage. We value hard to define features of life like love or beauty or justice. Of course, it’s possible to actually value the inverse of these things but it’s rare for someone to admit it. “I value lying and cowardice. I value hate and ugliness and oppression of the human spirit.”

Regardless, the things we value come from somewhere while also giving rise to action in the form of behavior.

But, in order for the things we value to be transformed into behavior, we all develop a thing we can call guiding principles, which are the way we (to be direct) organize our values in order to live. For instance, if we value truth-telling, we develop guidelines on how to live that way. We try to discern how truth-telling actually works in the real world. A guiding principal can be something like, “Always tell the truth unless by telling the truth you get someone inadvertently killed or cause great emotional harm to another person.” We struggle with both developing guiding principles and living by them. People who have some really solid guiding principles for behavior (derived from fundamental values) but who act contrary to those principles (for whatever reason) are often referred to as hypocrites, a not particularly flattering label.

So far, we have two things that help frame what and how we think and how we organize our lives. These two things help us make sense of our behavior and where that behavior comes from. Those two things are (1) Our values and (2) The principles or guidelines we construct in order to put our values into action.

At this point, we’re beginning to pull away the curtain to see what lies behind. Or, peeling away the layers to determine what the core is made of.

We’re basically moving away from the idea that everything is just random or illogical. In fact, there is a relationship between cause and effect. There is actually meaning and that, by applying the ability to reason, we discover that who we are and what we do is defined by principles which are formed from our values.

Which brings us to a very interesting point. From what or where do we get our values?

Do we merely come back to the position that our values are constructed randomly? That our values are constructed out of fluff? Mist? Shifting sands?

“Yes, I believe in love or beauty or honesty, or courage or justice but I have no reason to actually value those things other than that’s just how I feel.”

“And, of course, my feelings change (this I know from experience) and everyone feels just a little bit differently from everyone else because, you know, everyone is actually a little bit different and grew up in a different place with different experiences so I guess I don’t know where my values come from other than they’re just there. And, to be honest, my values change with time and experience just like feelings do.”

So, is this it? Is this what we find when we pull away the curtain in trying to discover why and how we think things are important and behave accordingly? Or is the curtain still closed?

I say the curtain is still closed. But that’s a matter of philosophy.

What do I mean by that?

I have written about this before. When you peel away all of the layers (basically all of the window dressing), we’re left with just two things. And those two things are actually two sides of the same thing, which we can call a worldview.

The concept of worldview is really, really important.

A worldview is actually a simple device by which we can lump all belief into one place. It’s a way of organizing everything into a single framework, by which everything is made sensical.

Now, let me say that there can be all kinds of worldviews, all kinds of frameworks by which we can organize the way we understand things. In a sense, every different religion or belief system offers a distinct “worldview.” The ways we examine the political landscape, for instance, can be through a worldview where economics reigns supreme or perhaps anthropology or sociology. But, I suggest, with some foundation that, in the end, we come to two doors, each separately beckoning us forward, each offering diametrically opposing worldviews or frameworks that give issue to all of our values and principles, thereby our behaviors and sense of meaning.

Two.

I ran into one of Diane’s best friends the other day (I also consider her a good friend). We’ve known one another for a long time and she asked me if I’m still writing. After all, she’s a faithful reader of my meanderings and it’s been awhile. The short answer is that I’ve taken one of those hiatuses not completely unknown in the last several years. I hesitated to come up with a good reason. A not unreasonable one is that we’ve been traveling a lot which has been nothing short of absolutely wonderful. I’m at home with rhythm, for the most part; although I’d have to say, that is, rhythm punctuated with adventure and the arrival of new things, which may be a partial definition of an oxymoron but who’s counting?

The obvious explanation is that I write when the impulse arrives, usually unbidden. I have no agenda to punch out a certain amount of words and no deadlines. At least right now.

And, to be honest, I haven’t felt such an urge lately and I’ve encountered no pressing need to address this or that theme or topic.

Instead, I’ve been doing a great amount of reading, amongst other activities. By great amount, I’d hazard that I’ve read some thirty books in the past three or four months and that doesn’t include many dozens of lengthy articles across a wide range of disciplines. I’m wearing a path to the hold section of the RB library, while also keeping my Kindle library updated.

As a lifelong reader, I’m familiar with all sorts of genres, from high brow to pulp, fiction and non-fiction, most of the major academic disciplines, historical to contemporary, science fiction to science reality and so on. I’ve gone through phases of thrillers, intrigue, crime and legal fiction, and most of the authors on the top 100 list of all time.

I’m not saying this to boast.

Instead, that as I age, I’m finding myself a bit more discriminatory. In that, things that used to seem interesting don’t necessarily hold that same allure. Oh, I’m not saying I need to be deeply challenged by things all of the time (a good story can be just that. A good story!).

But, I want to be drawn in, in a way that I come out the other side somehow a little bit different.

Which brings me to a curious feature in the life of a reader.

Have you, that are readers, ever had that feeling of loss when you’ve found a fantastic author who has written more than one book … and you come to the end (well, maybe there’s hope that next year there will be another one)? I’ve had that feeling many times. Like, darn, I’m losing something at least a little profound.

And, then, someone makes a recommendation or you stumble across a link to a name that did not exist in your world a few minutes ago and you decide to check it out and it’s like Christmas morning. Rinse and repeat. Will I ever find someone as good and prolific again?

I’ve cycled through this more times than I can count. Surely, I’m going to run out of great stories, great thoughts, great writers. To my perpetual relief, that has yet to happen!

Which brings me to this moment.

Recently, I’ve discovered a couple of absolutely remarkable authors. To use the Christmas analogy again, it’s been like opening a present with little or no expectation, only to be struck almost dumb by the beauty of the gift. I’ve recently encountered “take your breath away” writing because it touches deep places, much like an exquisite piece of music that leaves no room for anything else in that moment, while at the same time pointing to something greater than that of normal sensibilities.

Put a little differently, I’ve read some works that are so compelling that I have had trouble moving from one paragraph to the next … and this is from a reader who is known for being able to read a lot in a relatively short amount of time.

Perhaps, in a sense, a reason I haven’t been writing is that I’ve been filling the tank, so to speak. Unfortunately, an unwelcome side effect is the realization that I can’t hold a candle to some of these writers, in their ability to craft so fine a piece of art.

Oh well, fortunately, it’s not a competition!

(Caveat: Please don’t ask me for the list. After all, beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder and my eyesight can easily be different from yours!)

In any event, while I’ve been the glad receiver of some really wonderful writing, I’ve also been continuing my exploration of some of the general themes I’ve tackled previously. Among those is the intersection of knowledge, faith and belief. While that can sound esoteric and really the province of snooty philosophers, I like to examine it from the vantage point of we everyday folks.

One of the benefits of spending so much time reading and listening across the spectrum of ideas is that it helps us (me) focus on the things which prove the most valuable to our lives in the time we have on earth.

And, right now, I’m diving deeply into one of my favorite themes: What’s behind the curtain?

With that, stay tuned. 🙂

I know I haven’t posted much recently. We’ve been on the road a great deal since October. Interestingly, I’ve started a number of pieces but they’re still sitting in the hopper, unfinished. Not normal for me.

But, that’s not the reason for this.

I had lunch last week with a friend of mine named Pete. I’ve known him for quite awhile, mostly as he is married to a friend and close former colleague. At some point, he became aware of this blog and, I believe, is a regular reader and sometime critic, albeit with a gleam in his eye and seemingly a true fan of my efforts.

He’s also a published writer and teacher of writing with no small success. On a couple of occasions he has encouraged me to publish my stuff, something I’ve heard from several others over the past two or three years.

Of course, Pete said I’d have to change my style to make it more accessible to a much greater audience. Surprisingly, he believed I would not have a significant problem publishing if I put in the effort. He said that it would also meet the needs of many people who would benefit from some things I’d have to say.

Of course, I’ve thought about this from time to time, obviously aware that the way I write  often makes it challenging reading. Long, heavy, and detailed.

From the beginning, I’ve always written when I’ve felt called to address a theme. And, then, I just sit down and type away like I’m doing right now. Basic stream of consciousness. I rarely pause for more than a few minutes and never organize ahead of time, nor go back and revise. The opposite from how I learned to write in academia and taught my many hundreds of advanced students.

In essence, this has been a labor of love and more of a journal. You may not know that, from time to time, I update the entire package as a manuscript. There are now 210 blogs or essays, covering over 800 pages single space. My internal working title is “A Pilgrim’s Journey: Love Letters to God.”

Anyway, I’ve decided to listen to Pete and several others and try to approach my writing a bit differently. Not sure where this will lead. It may mean major revisions to some of my earlier work as well as tackling new thoughts differently.

Pete did say I have an obligation to publish and reach a broader audience. Guess we’ll see! Wish me luck!

(Written yesterday. Some technical glitches prevented it being publicly visible.)

I want to tell you about Maria and our exchange this morning.

I normally see Maria once a week when Diane and I are not traveling. She works behind the counter at Panera where I have my regular weekly early Thursday morning meeting with Gary.  Recently, I’ve begun also meeting on every other Tuesday morning with a local pastor who is in the process of opening a new church not far from our home. While I only ever order a mug of coffee (free refills), she has always smiled and seems to brighten when I come to the counter.

Maria is Latina and not young. Gray-haired and grandmotherly in appearance, she presents a warm countenance and I always engage her with special thanks. In fact, a week ago, I asked a young woman who was cleaning tables to send the manager over. When he arrived I let him know what a great job Maria was doing and how she reflected so positively on the Panera organization. He was pleasantly surprised and assured me that he would compliment her.

When I arrived this morning, a little bit later than my usual Thursday morning time slot, Maria inquired about Gary and I reminded her that that was Thursdays and today is my meeting with a couple of pastors starting a new church. She seemed interested (we had never talked about faith before) but then said the most astonishing and troubling thing.

She first asked me if I knew that a number of men met regularly early in the morning at Panera and always carried their bibles. I said, yes, I knew that as I would see them in pairs or even in groups of four, five, or six, engaged in discussion and the occasional prayer.

To which she replied, “You know, these men with their bibles are some of the meanest people I’ve ever met.”

To say that I was struck by her statement on so many levels would be, itself, an understatement.

I am well aware that many professing Christians are just not nice people. I am well aware that many professing Christians do not reflect the Jesus that I know. I am well aware that many professing Christians are one of the main reasons why non-Christians are not at all interested in exploring Christianity. But, this was such an in-your-face denunciation of multiple groups of Christian men in a way that left no room for interpretation that I was struck hard. I mean, “… these men with their bibles are some of the meanest people I’ve ever met” … suggests obvious behavior in the early morning in such a benign place as the local Panera that just seemed incongruous.

So, I asked her to tell me, if she could, how they were being mean. (Fortunately, there was no one behind me in line. I checked.) She didn’t really provide me specifics but just repeated that they were mean. I decided not to push.

She continued by saying that “the great one they follow must be ashamed of them.” From that, I concluded that she had some kind of Christian background or leanings. To which, I volunteered, “Maria, I’m so so sorry. I follow Jesus and it really hurts to hear of this. I hope you do not view me that way.” She smiled and nodded her head, saying, “You are maybe the nicest person I know. Jesus must be proud.”

I told her I was helping to start a new church (well, actually, this is the second brand new church I’ve been involved with just in the last year … oh my). She asked about it and said she’d love to visit. She explained that she was in ministry around the world for 25 years, helping youth, after leaving her home country of Brazil. She now assists groups of very troubled people who have succumbed to addiction and other overwhelming problems.

A little while later, I introduced her to Jonathan, the lead pastor of this new church, named Trinity, after I told him of our exchange. We then discussed how much we wanted Maria and people like her to be at home in this new faith community. Later after our meeting, when I was leaving and no one was in line, I went up, reached my hand across he counter and we connected as brother and sister, faces beaming.

I am left with conflicting thoughts and feelings as I write this upon arriving home. In a sense, this presented a microcosm of both the positive and negative sides of the world’s most popular faith. Billions of people expressly recognize this itinerant Jewish rabbi from a backwater village called Nazareth as God, Nazareth itself existing in a backwater portion of a geographic place loosely called Palestine, which at the time of Jesus hardly appeared as a blip on the world’s radar.

Of course, people being people, insert all of our own experiences, personalities, biases and so forth into things that give us meaning and purpose. Christianity is hardly a single thing, as it’s really just a vast and diverse collection of people who think all sorts of things and behave in all sorts of ways, far too much of which doesn’t seem to reflect the essence of what is at the heart of the faith. Unfortunately, they are frequently held up as proof that the faith is just not true. This is a fallacy as if God is to be blamed for the massive shortcomings of mankind. (Are all parents to bear blame for all of the sins of their adult children?)

Clearly, way too many professing Christians are so focused on the hand in front of their face (perhaps trying to interpret a piece of scripture or to discern how many angels fit on the head of a pin) that they become blinded to that which is right in front of them, thereby missing the grand point of it all, which is really all about love and grace, lostness and foundness, fully experiencing both joy and sorrow, lending a hand to those in need and so on. They become the elder brother in Luke 15, the story of the lost younger son who returns broken into the arms of a loving and gracious father while the rule-following elder brother stands scornfully close by. I want to weep at this, all the time recognizing how each of the characters in that most famous of Jesus stories compete for my attention.

But, “mean?”

I can unfortunately imagine not being overtly nice, but mean?

Lord, thank you so much for dear Maria who by all measures loves you and has taken your example to heart. I don’t know any of the men she describes but you do. I pray that something occurs to open their eyes to see people as you do. I pray that, when people interact with them, others may notice something different about them and in a good way. That they are respectful, kind, patient and caring. Please, Jesus, soften their hearts and may their example point clearly to the one who embodied love like no other. Amen.

We went out to breakfast this morning in the Colorado mountain town of Edwards, near Vail, where we are staying with dear friends. It’s Tim’s 60th birthday and we’ve had the most marvelous visit for the past ten days or so. Lots of snowshoeing in the backcountry … exhausting work traipsing up forested trails to alpine meadows in fresh snow but I remarked that this is what heaven must be like at 18 degrees. 🙂

All of this was a counterpoint to a disturbing image in the restaurant this morning. Two twenty-something couples sat in a booth nearby and as they passed and sat down, I read the phrases on their sweatshirts.

The woman’s said, “Trash the Fetus” and the man’s said, “Eye Hate God.”

My first thought was that this was pretty brazen stuff. In-your-face and not the kind of thing one sees every day. I’m all for free speech but this was pure attention-getting and I tried to wrap my head around who they were and what they were actually thinking.

Of course, I know a lot about atheism and the rejection of God as a theory. Objectivism, Rationalism and Naturism are all philosophically grounded in the belief there is no all-powerful supernatural being.

I’m very familiar with the Roe v. Wade decision and most of the debate points on the issue of abortion. I also am aware of the complexities involved in trying to determine how the legal system should respond to the issue, whichis a perfect confluence of science and morality. It confronts fundamental facets of human life … its meaning and significance. I happen to harbor my own strong feelings on the issue and I’m certainly not alone in that. But, to celebrate “trashing” a fetus is, to me, just plain repugnant which is why I was immediately taken aback.

It’s no secret that I “fought” God for decades. My wrestling was with the concept of such a Being in light of so much suffering and evil in the world. But, I never “hated” God. I’m not sure of the phrase on the man’s sweatshirt that said “Eye (as opposed to I) Hate God.” Nevertheless, my mind pretty quickly put these things aside as I remembered an amazing truth.

God loves them as completely and fully as he loves me and everyone else. Just because they reject him and seem to celebrate in that rejection … just because they see a developing human being as garbage, does not reduce by one iota his unconditional love for them. And, I am called to do the same.

So I prayed. I prayed that their hearts would turn from violence to compassion. That, should they question the idea of God, they should also pursue a life similar to the one Jesus proposed … one of service and charity, forgiveness and grace and, most importantly of love.

Lord, I suspect they really don’t hate you, if for no other reason than that they don’t know you. I rejected you in no uncertain terms as Saul of Tarsus did two thousand years ago before he emerged as the apostle Paul. But, you are the hound of heaven, the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to recover the one. I pray that the young man and young woman I saw this morning will some day hear your voice and say, “yes.” Amen.