I am a deeply religious non-believer. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.
- Albert Einstein
“A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and humility hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.” -- Carl Sagan
Our ancestors lived in a world of gods and demons, magic and superstition. Those gods have faded and that world is gone.
Now our world is stars and galaxies, molecules and computers. We need new guides, not fading gods.
Come with me and let’s re-view our new world together. My own personal quest for Einstein's new kind of religion has led me beyond science, religion and society. I’ll try to share where I’ve been in hopes it will help you on your way. As children say when playing doctor: “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Of course they are talking about their private parts, but then our heart is our most private part, isn’t it?
It has been said that we seek not knowledge but experience. You may not hop out of your bathtub and run naked through the streets yelling “I found it!” like Archimedes, but science can make the tears roll down our face like the singing of Pavarotti or Lara Fabian.
Here our appeal will not be to authorities of the past, magic or the supernatural, but to what nature herself has to show us. While we will rescue some valuable things from the religions and thinkers of our past, this is a journey of fading gods, of mileposts and shores left behind - a journey not for the faint hearted. As Columbus said:
"You can never cross the ocean . . .
until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
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Come, my friends, ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. …
Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
-- Tennyson
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Next >>>> The Unfolding
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NOTES: Major reorg in progress. Some sections are incomplete or broken - for a while.
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