hello to Nancy Pace

[john hagerhorst]

Your e-mail was refreshing.  The following is an e-mail I sent to my list.  I have suggested that I present it at the January FRESH meeting, and am awaiting word about it.

john

i find i now have a belief system, and feel an obligation to tell my friends and associates.

this is it:

The Carltonian concept

a science-based, secular belief system

For more than 7 thousand years mankind has had faith-based religious belief systems.  They have been as varied as humanity itself, but they have all been relative to humanities sense that there is something that is part of us and at the same time more than us.

Around a thousand years ago we acquired  a faith-based anti-religious belief system called atheism.  It consists of the 15% of humans who do not feel that sense that something in us is also more than us.

The religious belief systems hold that life was created by an individual, omnipotent, omniscient God (or Gods) and that life is primarily spiritual.  Many are opposed to physicality, saying one must suffer on earth to receive a reward in the afterlife.

The atheist belief system holds that life was created by accident and has no spirituality.  They hold that there is no afterlife and all rewards are received during one’s lifetime.

What these systems have in common is that it is impossible for science to prove or disprove them.  It is entirely possible that an omnipotent, omniscient creature could have created everything as we find it in six days around seven thousand years ago, and it is just as possible that life was created more than four billion years ago by accident, but it is impossible to prove either one of them is correct.  With no science to back them up, one must have “faith” in the belief that they are “right”, hence, they are faith-based beliefs.

Science demands testing or observation before acceptance, with one caveat.  Circumstantial evidence can be accepted, given a fair preponderance of it.  Examples would be evolution, which cannot be observed or tested, but has enough circumstantial evidence behind it to be accepted as a “theory”, and gravity.  We do not know what gravity is, or how it works, but it’s existence is so utterly obvious that we call it a “law”.

While science has been unable to prove or disprove either faith-based belief system, in it’s never-ending quest for information it is finally able to offer a secular belief system.  It too demands, at the end, faith, since the ultimate answer can never be known, but it is a faith in science, which calls for acceptance, rather than a faith in religion, which calls for worship.

Science has, for more than four hundred years, sent out scientists to study different groups of people who have never known any other people, intending to find out how they differ.  We have studied hundreds of groups of indigenous peoples, in hundreds of locales throughout the globe, discovered amazing differences, and, perhaps even more amazing, only one consistency.

Only one thing held universally throughout the globe and throughout the hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of groups we studied.  Every group demonstrated a sense that there is something that is not only within us but is also more than us, and that there was an afterlife.

They had innumerable ways to express that sense, and sometimes thousands of gods to explain that sense, but that sense was always there.  In our world that sense is paramount.  Eighty-five percent of humanity today demonstrates a sense that we are a part of something more.

This is a universal feeling.  Some are more sensitive to it than others, and some fifteen percent are completely insensitive to it, but everyone has it.  The question that arises is: Where does that sense come from?  Energy.

When our atomic physicists split an atom of matter they discovered a great deal of energy and no residue.  Their conclusion was that matter is a form of energy, which wakes the universe, in it’s entirety, energy.  I don’t agree with their observation, I think there was something else, but I agree with their conclusion, that the universe is energy.   (There is “something else” that is “without” the universe, but that is physics and so doesn’t belong here.)

Philosophically, we can call this sense we have, that there is something that is us and yet more than us, the connection between our energy and the energy of the universe.  The evidence is so universal as to be undeniable. That we all have always felt it and it exists is enough evidence.  The evidences may be, as are the evidences for evolution, circumstantial rather than empirical, but if we put those two together, the answer becomes obvious.  The universe is interconnected energy, and we are interconnected energy.  We are the universe, and the universe is us.

Human beings are intelligent.  We can think.  We can also see that virtually all life demonstrates some ability to think, although most of life seems to be unaware of that ability.  Given the dandelion's defense against lawn mowers, and the video that science has recently presented showing molecules of tin acting as though they are thinking, it is easy to say that thinking is universal.

If intelligence is universal, one may assume that the universe is intelligent.  That would mean that we are interconnected energy in an interconnected, intelligent universe.  And that would be a science-based secular belief system.

A belief system must have a name, since it is the wont of man to name things, and, since it is the wont of scientists to name their discoveries after themselves, I have chosen to name it Carltonian secularism.

A belief system must also have tenets.  Here is a tenet of Carltonian secularism.

Man is Honest, Ethical, Caring and Considerate

Human beings are inherently honest, ethical, caring and considerate.

The deviations from that are the result of society.  The trauma we suffer at the hands of society makes it very difficult to maintain our inherent traits, but we try.

Being dishonest, unethical, uncaring and inconsiderate has become ingrained in our society.  When someone does overcome it they are called exemplary.  They are an example of what man really is.

A religion is a philosophical position that attempts to explain our existence in relation to the universe.

There are two different religious positions in our world.  One believes that we were created by a god of some sort, that we are connected to that god  through our spirit, (or souls,) and that there is an afterlife.

The other believes that we were created by accident, evolved by mistake, have no spirit, and will “disappear” when we die.  To those believers there is no god nor any inherent traits, and they avidly proclaim they are not a religion because their religion denies  the existence of “god”.  They are called atheists.

Both of these religious positions deny that humanity is inherently honest, ethical, caring and considerate.  Regrettably, and much to the degradation of a field that had the opportunity to be exemplary, the field of science holds to the position of the atheists.

We are inherently honest, ethical, caring and considerate.  We are not inherently greedy.  Greed is one of the ingrained traumas inflicted on us by society.

john Carlton hagerhorst

Frederick, Md.

October 19, 2009

i believe this, and so, i am a Carltonian.

john

[Roy Bates]

Secular Humanists seem to come with various belief systems as part of their makeup. Perhaps a majority, or at least a large number of them, are atheists. Some of those doubtless believe, as John has stated, that life and its evolution have been caused by "accident". On the other hand, there must be a number of us who recognize that matter, physics, and chemistry, to the extent that we know them, interact according to known rules. Such predictability in physical and chemical activity seems to refute the use of the word "accident".

Religionists have always asserted that the predictability humans have been able to infer from studying bits of the universe is only attributable to external, deistic forces. When new things are learned that refute what religionists have written in their "scripture", some amend their thinking, some amend their scripture, and some just deny the new evidence. (For a good definition of "scripture", see The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.) They can be comfortable in knowing that the universe and all that occurs within it did not (does not) happen by accident.

I suggest that we consider a third option: Many of us just find satisfaction in learning how things work so that we might make better decisions about how we will live, and how we will function as members of an interdependent human culture. From my recent studies in Celebrancy, I've come away with a new belief: Humans need ceremony and ritual to achieve commonality in recognizing the steps or stages of life we share with others. What we don't really need is a theistic philosophy. The evidence for this seems simple and apparent: As freedom increases for individuals, there is a trend for more of us to just leave theistic beliefs behind. But, we are seeing that more are becoming aware of the absence of communal feeling in their families, communities, and larger groupings.

Rather than presenting The Carltonian Concept in a FRESH meeting or other secular fora, perhaps what we might consider working toward is developing a discussion and debate about the need for a belief system, other than the precepts that have been stated by the Ethical Societies and the Humanist Societies. In other words, why bother?

John, if you really feel that you've been turned away by the Secular Humanists, try your ideas out on the Unitarians. They'll be glad to discuss and debate your proposed belief system for centuries. They'll probably take time out to do their usual services to each other, the community, and humanity, but they'll be glad to keep the discussion going.

Be Of Good Cheer

Roy
___BATES
Certified Secular Celebrant

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Windows 7: I wanted more reliable, now it's more reliable. Wow!

[john hagerhorst]

roy, (& all,)

first, i agree in essence with what you say.  i have a son in texas who said he was going to present it to his unitarian church, and i will probably get some comment, but my primary concern with FRESH is that i presented the very beginning of what has been two years of constant thought, and would like to present what appears to be the end, especially in january, the 2nd anniversary of the beginning.  i do think there are a lot of atheists there, but i like them and certainly don't think they have "turned me away".

to your option, i'd like to say that i personally do not feel the need for ritual or ceremony, but it is obvious no one person can know the spiritual needs of the world, and i agree wholeheartedly that there needs to be an understandable commonality that the world lacks.  i like to think my concept is a move in that direction.

as to the need for a belief system, the only evidence i see for it is that everyone everywhere throughout time has developed one.

have you read my concept, and if not, would you?  i am finding it difficult to find someone that will do more that flatly reject it, usually on only one of it's points.

john

On Oct 26, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Roy Bates wrote:

Secular Humanists seem to come with various belief systems as part of their makeup. Perhaps a majority, or at least a large number of them, are atheists. Some of those doubtless believe, as John has stated, that life and its evolution have been caused by "accident". On the other hand, there must be a number of us who recognize that matter, physics, and chemistry, to the extent that we know them, interact according to known rules. Such predictability in physical and chemical activity seems to refute the use of the word "accident".

Religionists have always asserted that the predictability humans have been able to infer from studying bits of the universe is only attributable to external, deistic forces. When new things are learned that refute what religionists have written in their "scripture", some amend their thinking, some amend their scripture, and some just deny the new evidence. (For a good definition of "scripture", see The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.) They can be comfortable in knowing that the universe and all that occurs within it did not (does not) happen by accident.

I suggest that we consider a third option: Many of us just find satisfaction in learning how things work so that we might make better decisions about how we will live, and how we will function as members of an interdependent human culture. From my recent studies in Celebrancy, I've come away with a new belief: Humans need ceremony and ritual to achieve commonality in recognizing the steps or stages of life we share with others. What we don'treally need is a theistic philosophy. The evidence for this seems simple and apparent: As freedom increases for individuals, there is a trend for more of us to just leave theistic beliefs behind. But, we are seeing that more are becoming aware of the absence of communal feeling in their families, communities, and larger groupings.

[Nancy Pace]

HI everyone – Thanks for this—I finally got around to reading it! We’ve been so busy—as everyone seems to be these days…. J Very interesting thoughts here—I hope to make the FRESH meetings when I can—such a thoughtful, caring group, and such wonderful dialogue…. J Thanks for all the time, energy, goodness…. Nancy Pace J

 

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